<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Windows by sakurabaibai</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25759393">Windows</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakurabaibai/pseuds/sakurabaibai'>sakurabaibai</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Vocaloid, プロジェクトセカイ カラフルステージ！| Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Childhood Friends, Classical Music, F/F, F/M, Family Issues, Implied/Referenced Anxiety, Implied/Referenced Parental Death, Len/Miku is hinted, M/M, Misunderstandings, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Siblings, Slow Burn, Teenage Rebellion, Touya's father, also just for reference the first 5 chapters were written before the game came out, wandasho are cute</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:01:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>23,684</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25759393</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakurabaibai/pseuds/sakurabaibai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The streets of Aokusa glow as if they're lit on fire. The light dances, strong against the black of the night sky, and it reminds Touya he shouldn't be here; that he shouldn't be doing this. But when he looks at Akito, streetlights forming a halo behind him, he realizes for the first time in his life, he doesn't really care. Music is a form of expression, of sadness, of love, of passion, of life.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Azusawa Kohane/Shiraishi An, Hanasato Minori/Kiritani Haruka, Hatsune Miku/Kagamine Len, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Shinonome Akito &amp; Shiraishi An, Shinonome Akito/Aoyagi Touya, Shinonome Ena/Akiyama Mizuki</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>179</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hi. ok so. i dont know why i decided to do this but. im doing it anyway. sorry if anyone seems out of character, obviously i dont have much to go off of, but i still did my best!!! this is fairly light compared to the rest of the things ive written and that feels kind of nice tbh</p><p>um... everyone will be in this btw. at some point. obviously its vbs centric but everyone is here. and there will be subplots/etc. theres no plan here im just going with whatever my hands decide to type out honestly. but i thought we all deserved the content however bad it may be</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Touya thinks the only positive thing about going to boarding school is not having to deal with his father anymore. One of his older brothers will be there, but he’s a senior and definitely too preoccupied with other matters to worry about him, so Touya considers himself almost completely unattached. Yet, the violin sitting next to him on the floor of the train car watches over him forbiddingly, a reminder that while he is left to his own devices, his purpose is to master the art the Aoyagi family reveres. He has no other goal.</p><p>He’s been playing violin his whole life, so he’s used to it. He finds it fits his independent attitude and slight presence. Overall, though, Touya continues to play violin because he loves music, and it’s the only form of self-expression he can latch onto under his father’s stern eye.</p><p>He stares out the window at the fields as the train continues on its way. He’d been listening to music until his playlist had reached the end, and now he sits in silence, earbuds still in. He’s worried if he listens to anymore classical music he’ll get sick of it before he even gets to the performing arts boarding school, where he’s supposed to start studying it.</p><p>Touya also leaves his earbuds in because he really, really doesn’t want to be bothered. He’s not sure what he’d expected, being in a train car full of rich kids: with the way the people around him are acting, he’s convinced they’ve never been out of the sight of an adult in their lives. A girl with bright pink hair is bounding through the train car and introducing herself to anyone she finds interesting enough, and she’s currently talking to a boy with purple hair who’s tinkering with some unidentifiable electronic device, laughing as it sputters and sparks.</p><p>Most people seem to know each other already, but since Touya’s never been very socially inclined, he seems to fade into the background of the train. Continuing to stare out the window at nothing in particular, he wonders how long is left of the trip. He’s been sitting here for around two or three hours, looking blankly at monotonous scenery as it passes. They’ve got to be getting there soon- it’s beginning to look more and more like a city as they continue.</p><p>The combination of the ambiance of the people in the train and the soft swaying of the train causes Touya to slowly grow sleepy. He isn’t sure if he actually falls asleep or not, but he thinks he probably does, because when he jolts awake the train is at a complete stop. He pulls out an earbud and looks around, surprised to see no one making a move to get off yet; in fact, it looks like they’ve reached yet another train station.</p><p>Touya sighs and unlocks his phone, browsing through his playlists, of which he doesn’t have many. Defeated, he decides to just listen to the one he was listening to before. As he’s busying himself with skipping songs until something slightly interesting comes up, the doors of the train open and a few new teenagers trickle into the train. Since he sits opposite the side of the open door, he can just stare out the window he’s pressed up against and pretend not to hear anyone. He does just that.</p><p>He almost succeeds in being unbothered, but he feels someone tap his shoulder to get his attention. The feeling surprises him so much he’s sure he jumps a foot into the air, but he regains his composure in a fraction of a second. Taking out his earbuds, Touya turns around to see a girl with short brown hair staring at him expectantly.</p><p>“Excuse me,” she says, “Is anyone else sitting here?” Touya shakes his head and the girl turns around to look over her shoulder and beckon someone over. Soon, she’s joined by a boy with orange hair. “Here,” she points at the open spot next to Touya and frowns. “Sit.”</p><p>“I told you, Ena, I’m fine,” says the boy, eyes gleaming with annoyance.</p><p>“No. You are not going to stand by the door and isolate yourself,” she replies. Touya turns back to the window. Ironically, that’s exactly what he’s been doing this entire time, but he assumes his situation is different than theirs. The girl turns her attention to Touya again and sighs. “Sorry. I’m Shinonome Ena and this is my little brother, Akito. He’s a first year.”</p><p>Touya turns back to meet her eyes, still so intense they’re a little overwhelming. “Aoyagi Touya,” he replies. “First year.”</p><p>“Sorry for bothering you, Aoyagi, my sister and I will be on our way now.” Akito grumbles.</p><p>Ena huffs and grabs Akito’s arm as he tries to leave. Although she’s considerably shorter than him, it’s somehow understandable that she’s older. Akito doesn’t necessarily look like a mess of a person, but Ena definitely looks more put together than him. “I already asked if you could sit here. It’s more of a bother to do this for no reason.”</p><p>Touya wonders if he should tell them this is actually fairly good entertainment compared to the past four hours he’s spent staring out the window listening to Beethoven, but he decides against it. Fortunately, Akito doesn’t seem too talkative, and as long as Touya isn’t bothered to talk to him the whole rest of the trip, he doesn’t really care one way or the other. The siblings stare at each other, having some kind of silent argument, but neither seems to win. “Come on, Akito, Mizuki’s waiting for me.”</p><p>“Fine.” He gives up. Touya watches as he sits down on the edge of the seat, a good foot or so away from Touya, and facing out towards the aisle. Ena smiles at him with a little added contempt, and then gives Touya a little bow and thanks him. Touya nods silently and looks back out towards the window.</p><p>After about ten minutes of silence, he realizes Akito must have a habit of self-pity, because he keeps his back to Touya the entire time. If Touya knew how, he’d ask him about it, but he doesn’t know how to phrase the question, so he doesn’t. He doesn’t even realize he’s quite literally staring at the back of Akito’s neck until he moves to take something out of his pocket and Touya whips his head back to the window, hoping Akito didn’t know it.</p><p>“Aoyagi,” he hears, and he feels himself stiffen. “Want some?” Touya turns to see Akito offering him a piece of gum. Touya takes it hesitantly. “You don’t talk much, do you?”</p><p>Touya stares at his lap as he tries to think of how to respond. He feels like saying ‘Nope, not really’ seems dismissive, but he feels like he’s put on the spot. His entire life has felt rehearsed, so when someone asks him something like this, he doesn’t know how to play it off as a joke or how to lighten the mood. He feels frozen. </p><p>To his surprise though, Akito doesn’t seem to really want to push him to answer. “I see.” He leans back to stare at the seat in front of them, blowing a bubble with his gum and fidgeting with the wrapper. “I won’t force anything, in that case.” There’s a beat of silence as Touya continues to sit still, the piece of gum in his clammy hand and eyes shifting between his lap and the violin sitting by his feet.</p><p>“Well, hopefully we’ll get to know each other throughout the year, especially since we’ll be sharing a room.”</p><p>Touya knits his brow. “What?” he asks, turning to address him.</p><p>Akito blows another bubble as Touya studies his profile. “Ah, I assumed you didn’t realize,” Akito says, feigning nonchalance as though he’s attempting to minimize the air of awkwardness between them. “Unless there’s another Aoyagi Touya here, we’re roommates.” Touya wishes he’d known, but he hadn’t handled any of his paperwork. He wonders if there had been some kind of student guide he was supposed to receive.</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” Touya says. He tries to make it sound like he’s known all along, but it’s not very convincing. Akito glances at him, brown eyes unmistakably warm. Touya isn’t sure what to make of him, with his artificially dyed hair and unreadable personality. Yet, if Akito had picked up on how Touya actually hadn’t known anything, he doesn’t say anything about it.</p><p>Instead, the train speakers play their unpleasant buzzer sound, and a woman’s voice- one Touya is beginning to feel very familiar with- announces they’ll be approaching another station soon. Akito sighs. “I hate train rides,” he says to no one in particular as he leans back in his seat and continues to stare forward; and then to Touya, he asks, “How long have you been here, Aoyagi?”</p><p>“Four hours,” Touya answers plainly.</p><p>“Wow, that’s a really long time,” Akito sighs. Touya nods in agreement. The twenty minutes Akito has been sitting here does not begin to compare to it, but he doesn’t point that out. He also regrets the thought he had earlier about Akito not seeming talkative. He’s thankful, at least, that Akito’s form of letting his mouth run is careful not to pry.</p><p>After that, they don’t really talk to each other except for a few small exchanges every ten minutes or so, initiated by Akito. It’s awkward, still, but Touya hopes it means the two of them were somehow getting closer. Maybe he can make this year worth it if he doesn’t spend it alone.

</p>
<hr/><p>To Touya’s surprise, the boarding school is actually farther away from the city than he’d expected it to be. He guesses it makes sense: the campus is sprawling, and a city nearby might be troublesome for all sorts of security reasons. The architecture is about what’d you’d expect for a private music school: not decadent, but still classic and refined.</p><p>When Touya and the rest of his classmates get off the train, there’s a boring speech from the dean; she says she’s excited for the coming school year, but her face doesn’t sell it. “You’ve all already received your rule guides and syllabi, so little introduction to courses or policies is necessary,” she 	declares. Touya frowns perturbedly. The lecture he’d gotten from his father last night probably hadn’t covered everything.</p><p>After about twenty minutes and a lot of walking, Akito opens the door to their dorm room, and the two peer into it like they’re expecting it to be haunted. It’s not haunted, thankfully, but it is very boring. It looks like it’s mirrored down the middle: there are two twin-sized beds, both pushed up into the opposite far corners, each complete with a side table and lamp. At the foot of each bed stands a chest of drawers. Basic wooden wardrobes and desks with straight backed chairs are nearer to the door; in the middle of the room is a drab looking rug. The finishing touch is the single window directly opposite the door, which might have seemed quaint if only the rest of the room wasn’t so bare.</p><p>Akito goes to inspect their luggage, which is set in a pile in the middle of the rug, as Touya continues to study the room from the entrance. He feels out of place and a little awkward, as though he’s intruding on someone else's space. Wondering if the feeling will go away as time passes, he looks at the minimally decorated walls and finds himself a little at peace with the novelty.</p><p>“Hey, Aoyagi,” Akito says. “Which side of the room do you want?” Facing the rest of the room with his hands on his hips, he looks like he’s ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work.</p><p>“I don’t mind either,” Touya replies. He joins Akito at his right, and the two of them think it over for an absurdly long amount of time.</p><p>Akito points to the left. “I’ll take this side,” he decides. Touya nods, and the pair splits at the middle into their respective halves. </p><p>It takes them about a half an hour to put their things away into drawers and closets. Akito hums something frantic as he works; Touya wonders if it’s Vivaldi or maybe something from a ballet, like Tchaikovsky, and he keeps his mind content by letting it run off as he works. There are already pressed shirts and pants in the wardrobe, which must be the uniform, as the shirts have the school crest on the breast pocket.</p><p>As Touya is finishing putting pants into his bottom drawer, Akito collapses on his bed and stares at the ceiling. Some kind of instrument case is on his dresser: it’s not very big, so Touya assumes it’s some kind of woodwind instrument. His own violin is sitting on his bed.</p><p>“Haven’t even been here for two hours and I’m already trying to think of ways to sneak out,” Akito remarks. Touya smiles a little at that but doesn’t reply. “The train is a twelve-minute ride into the heart of Aokusa. You can’t expect they’d keep us here when the city is so close. We’re first years in high school, after all, so they’ve gotta let us live our youth a little,” he says in a low tone, as though he’s sharing a secret. Touya zips open his smaller second suitcase and starts piling books on his desk.</p><p>“I suppose so,” he agrees passively, paging through a binder of old sheet music he’d found under his bed before he left and thrown in his suitcase at the last second under the impression that it might be important. He doesn’t know what to do with it after he realizes it’s music he’d written himself a few years ago but scrapped after a discussion with his father.</p><p>“My sister said she’s been to Aokusa a few times,” Akito considers out loud. “Ena’s not much of a rulebreaker.” Touya hums in acknowledgement, putting the binder on the shelf above his closet so he can deal with it later.</p><p>“Your sister’s a second year?”</p><p>Akito sits up. “Yep. Surprised you haven’t heard of her. Shinonome Ena, seventeen-year-old double bass prodigy, Shiba Music Academy’s most talented second year student,” he recites mockingly.</p><p>“That makes two of us, then,” Touya replies, and Akito raises an eyebrow. “My entire family is known for so-called genetic musical talent.” Sitting on his bed, he continues to look at the rug. “One of my brothers is a third year this year; he’s a pianist.” He leaves out his father and his oldest brother, keeping the information shallow.</p><p>Nodding, Akito shifts to sit cross-legged with his chin in his hand, elbow resting on his knee. “So we get each other. That’s cool.” Touya shrugs. “Are you into anything else?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I mean… do you have any other hobbies? Other than violin?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t call playing violin my hobby.” Touya bites his lip. “But i also play piano.”</p><p>Narrowing his eyes, Akito drums a finger against his cheek. “Anything else?”</p><p>Touya gestures towards the books on his desk. “I read.” Sighing, Akito looks like he’s getting more exhausted by the second. “What about you?”</p><p>Akito blinks like he hadn’t expected Touya to continue the conversation. “Uh… yeah. I dance.” Out of all things, Touya hadn’t expected that.</p><p>“Like ballet?”</p><p>“No. Modern dance. Street dance.”</p><p>Touya furrows his brow in confusion, a little uncertain. “I’ve never really seen street dance.”</p><p>“I’ll show you sometime,” Akito says, eyes bright. “In Aokusa, there’s-” He’s cut off by the sound of a bell, and through the walls Touya can hear the opening and closing of doors and the chatter of voices. “I’ll tell you later, Aoyagi. Let’s go to dinner.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i'm... not really sure what happened here. but somehow i wrote a second chapter that actually holds some substance, and like, impressed myself ? which is pretty cool i guess.</p><p>anyway i hope u enjoy this !</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After dinner is over, they’re given permission to roam around the school grounds for a few hours until the 9:00 p.m. bell. Akito is pestered by Ena to let her give him a tour, so Touya returns back to their room alone and sits on his bed, staring at the words of an open book and trying to concentrate. It doesn’t really work.</p><p>Instead, he finds himself interested in the window between their beds, so he stands and moves to get a better look at the view out of it. Somehow, he hadn’t made the connection that being on the third floor of the building would make the view out of the window just as far from the ground, and when he realizes it, he has to take a few steps back. He hates heights.</p><p>The view itself, he reasons, is pleasant: there’s a large tree barely able to be seen on the left of the window, old but strong. The rest of the view is the courtyard. The ghost of panic he’d felt momentarily is replaced with relief when his eyes are drawn to a small dot of bright orange easily distinguishable from afar, even though the courtyard is spotted with a number of students.</p><p>He wonders if Akito dyes his hair, or if it’s natural. He assumes it’s likely the former. It suits Akito, he thinks, bright orange hair that makes him easy to find in a crowd, that gives the impression of confidence. His warm brown eyes- a trait he shares with his sister- hint at something completely different however, and they make Akito seem all the more mysterious. Touya thinks of his own dark hair and grey eyes, ordinary, the only thing distinguishing him from his brothers being a mole under his left eye. He’s never dyed his hair before, and he doubts his family would let him.</p><p>He sits back on his bed and stares at the pages again, his mind somehow feeling a little clearer. This time, he manages to keep his mind from wandering, letting himself become so involved in his book he doesn’t even realize when he starts nodding off to sleep.</p><p>He must have, though, because when he becomes aware of his surroundings again, the room is dark except for moonlight filtering in through the window, and there’s something covering his shoulders, even though he knows he’d been sitting on top of a made bed. He sits up and realizes he’s still on a made bed and something else is on him: it doesn’t take him long to realize it’s Akito’s sweatshirt from yesterday. He looks over at Akito’s bed, and everything makes sense when he sees Akito in it.</p><p>Touya must have fallen asleep and not woken up when Akito had come in after seeing Ena. He wonders why Akito hadn’t just woken him up and instead decided to just cover him with his sweatshirt; isn’t that what most people would do? He doesn’t mind it, though, because when he takes it off to fold it and put it on top of Akito’s dresser, he finds it’s actually surprisingly cold in their room. He shivers as he puts his book on the bedside table and properly gets into bed, and it doesn’t take him long to fall asleep after that.</p><p>He wakes up to someone shaking him gently. “Aoyagi,” whispers a familiar voice, and he furrows his brow trying to figure out who it is. It’s not his brother, or the housekeeper, who calls him by his given name. Opening his eyes still bleary from sleep, he sees an unmistakable yet blurry form of Akito leaning over him, and he’s reminded of the previous day. “Aoyagi,” Akito says a little louder, “God, you’re a heavy sleeper.”</p><p>Touya sits up and Akito leans away from him. His hair looks like a mess, and he’s in a crappy old shirt he must have slept in. Touya probably doesn’t look much better. “The 7:00 a.m. morning bell rang like five minutes ago. I’ve been trying to wake you up since.” Akito says, and Touya yawns.</p><p>“When are we supposed to be in the dining hall?” Touya asks quietly, carding through his hair with his fingers. Akito stands and stretches his arms above his head.</p><p>“Breakfast is served at seven-thirty, we have to be out of our dorms by eight. You’re not that late.”</p><p>Touya rolls out of bed and surveys the room. He sees Akito’s sweatshirt, still sitting where he’d left it last night, and he wonders if he should say something about it. He decides not to, for some reason. Not because of embarrassment or humiliation, but something kind of like it that makes him feel like there are things that are better left unsaid.</p><p>After a quick visit to the bathroom, the two of them get dressed in silence. Touya thinks about showering, but he decides to do it before he goes to bed, because he’s already a little late. He tends to be slow in the morning anyway, and he really doesn’t want to miss breakfast on his first full day. While he’s wondering what will be for breakfast (since dinner last night was pleasantly surprising in terms of food quality) Akito calls his name.</p><p>He turns around to see his roommate looking sheepish, completely dressed except for his tie, which hangs undone around his neck. “How do you do this?”</p><p>Touya blinks, and then it registers that Akito is asking him to teach him how to tie his tie. Without a word, he sets down his comb on his desk and goes over to his roommate, reaching around to the back of Akito’s neck to make the blade side hang lower than the tail. He realizes he’s noticeably taller than Akito, who seems to be staring at Touya’s tie. He doesn’t know why Akito doesn’t know how to tie a tie; hasn’t he ever done a formal, black-tie recital before?</p><p>“The blade- the thicker side- should hang on the right, and lower than the tail, the thinner side,” Touya finds himself explaining softly. “Cross the blade over the tail, but not tightly around your neck.” His hands mirror his words, almost as though they’re following what he says involuntarily. “Twist the blade back ‘round the tail- the seam will face out- and then fold it over its knot, so the back of it is still facing out, but to the left.” Akito watches his fingers intensely, and Touya feels a little self-conscious.</p><p>“Fold the blade back over the knot so the front is facing out to the right, then fold it upwards under the knot. The first fold-over gives us this-” he points at the sideways loop already tied into the knot, not yet pulled tight- “which is where the blade is held into the knot.” His practiced fingers feed the blade into the loop until it’s hanging straight down Akito’s shirt. “And then you tighten it.” He watches as the knot slides into place between the flaps of his collar, his eyes moving up Akito’s neck and up his nose to finally look him squarely in the face.</p><p>Akito is not looking at him, and instead looking at his now neatly done tie, moving his hands as though he’s trying to commit the method to muscle memory. “You could have just told me,” Akito says weakly, without a trace of aggression. Touya nods. He thinks it’s easier to just narrate as he does it himself instead of trying to instruct someone, but Akito’s tone makes him think it doesn’t really matter. </p><p>“Let’s get to breakfast then, Shinonome-san, if you’re ready to go.”</p><p>They join a scattered stream of other students on their way to the dining hall. The walk isn’t long, but it isn’t necessarily fast either, which Touya decides is a good thing, as it will require him to fully wake up as he goes. Akito seems a little faded, probably still tired, even though Touya can tell he’s not too bothered by the morning.</p><p>“Today’s the real deal, hm?” Akito remarks. “You have a piece for the auditions, right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Touya affirms. “Do you?”</p><p>“Yep. I practiced one and got pretty far, but Ena told me multiple people play it every year, so she told me all I need to know about the exciting art of clarinet solos, and I chose something else. Seriously, why does she even know that much about clarinet? I’m the clarinet player. She doesn’t even play a woodwind instrument.” Touya realizes he didn’t even know Akito played the clarinet. He’d expected something more showy, like a saxophone or a cello, but he supposes it makes sense.</p><p>“I heard that,” says a voice from behind them, which Touya identifies immediately as Ena’s. Akito freezes in surprise for a split second, and then he slouches in helplessness as they start to descend a flight of stairs. Ena catches up to them about midway through, her bobbed hair bouncing as she bounds down the stairs. Touya thinks he can notice Akito speed up a little, but Ena doesn’t relent.</p><p>“Good morning, Aoyagi-san,” Ena smiles at him as they reach the bottom of the stairs. Now that Touya’s standing by her instead of sitting like he was on the train, he realizes how small she is: she barely passes his shoulder. Touya returns the greeting. “You guys haven’t seen Mizuki this morning, have you?”</p><p>Akito sighs. “I think I saw them going to the dining hall already.”</p><p>“We promised we’d meet at the west wing entrance before breakfast,” she frowns, looking a little like a kicked puppy. A girl with a curly purple ponytail joins her other side, and the group- initially just Touya and Akito- turns into a four-person-wide moving wall.</p><p>The purple haired girl looks well put together but, at the same time, like she hasn’t slept in three weeks. “Have you found Mizuki yet?” She asks Ena, who shakes her head. “Ah… this is pretty typical of them, don’t you think?”</p><p>Ena only deflates in response. Then, after a few moments, she snaps back to life and taps Akito on the shoulder. “Akito, have I introduced you to Mafuyu yet? My roommate?” Akito shakes his head, but slows his pace. “This is Asahina Mafuyu. She plays the cello.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you, Asahina-san,” Akito says, his voice sounding uncharacteristically polite. “I’m Shinonome Akito. This is my roommate, Aoyagi Touya.” Akito points at him, and he gives a weak wave.</p><p>Mafuyu smiles, but it still doesn’t really meet her eyes. “Nice to meet you, Shinonome-san, Aoyagi-san.”</p><p>Suddenly scowling, Ena seems annoyed, and Mafuyu furrows her brow in confusion. “There you go again, acting like someone you’re not,” Ena glowers. Touya wonders if there’s more to it than that, because the look she gives Akito seems charged with both genuine concern and aggravation. Akito doesn’t reply to her, and in a few moments, the two girls break off from their little group and move on ahead in silence.</p><p>Sighing again, Akito puts his hands in his pockets and turns to look at Touya. “Sorry about that. She’s annoying.”</p><p>“She’s not that bad.”</p><p>“You don’t live with her.” The reply seems automated, like he doesn’t really mean what he says; like he’s reciting lines. Touya doesn’t pry, but he thinks passively the Shinonomes must be a more complicated set of siblings than they let on.</p><p>They must be getting to the dining hall soon (Touya doesn’t really remember the way, so he’s basically just following Akito and assuming he knows what he’s doing) because the smell of bacon and maple is soon detectable in the air. He hopes they have coffee. He doesn’t know how he’ll survive the year if they don’t have coffee.</p><p>“It smells like syrup.” Akito narrows his eyes suspiciously. “They must have pancakes.” Touya nods, the quick change of subject not going unnoticed. “Hell yeah,” Akito says under his breath, but loud enough that Touya can hear him.</p><p>They find out about five minutes later that there are indeed both pancakes and coffee. Touya usually doesn’t actually eat during breakfast, but Akito insists he eats at least a piece of toast or something, so he has a chocolate croissant. Akito looks absolutely thrilled about the pancakes.</p><p>Because of the lack of a set time for breakfast- only a specified time window when it’s served- instead of having big tables for the entire student body, there are smaller circular tables from which students can come and go. However, as the question of where they’ll eat arises, Akito and Touya realize there isn’t a single completely empty table. At a table by the right wall, Touya sees Ena, Mafuyu, a silver haired girl, and a pink-haired person he assumes is Mizuki because of how Ena is scolding them, but Akito leads them to a table in the complete opposite direction.</p><p>They reach a table that’s completely empty if not for a strawberry blonde girl, who looks absolutely terrified of them. “Excuse me,” Akito says with that strange politeness again, “Can we sit here?” The girl seems to relax.</p><p>She gestures to the seat on her left. “My friend is gonna sit here. But you can sit anywhere else.” Akito gives her a grateful smile- Touya studies it carefully until it disappears from his face, as though committing it to memory. The two of them sit across the table from the girl, who continues to watch them curiously.</p><p>“It’s awkward if we don’t introduce ourselves,” Akito says after a moment, his tone still retaining an overabundance of formality. “I’m Shinonome Akito, a first year on clarinet, and this is my roommate, Aoyagi Touya. He plays violin.” Touya takes a drink of coffee, hot and dark, which he realizes a moment after is a strange gesture of acknowledgment.</p><p>The girl’s eyes light up, like she’d been waiting for Akito to ask her name. “I’m Hanasato Minori!” she says brightly, her tone reflecting her change of attitude almost perfectly. “I’m a first year too, and I play piccolo-” her excitement causes her to flail her hand carelessly into her cup of milk, which tips over from the impact and spills its contents over the table. The milk threatens to pool itself around Minori’s plate, so she pushes it out of the way of the flow.</p><p>Minori already looks like she’s about to cry from embarrassment, but she then nearly cries dramatically out of gratitude when Akito hands her his napkins. If Touya had any he would have given them to her as well, but he hadn’t expected to need them. While Minori furiously wipes up spilt milk and mutters to herself angrily under her breath (seriously, hasn’t she ever heard the saying ‘don’t cry over spilt milk’?) another girl with short hair joins her side with a handful of napkins.</p><p>“Minori-chan, you couldn’t have at least waited to spill something until I got here?” she asks fondly, putting the napkins on the dry part of the table. Touya bites into his croissant and washes it down with another drink of hot coffee: the absolute perfect way to start the day, he realizes. He’s glad he listened to Akito and took the croissant.</p><p>The short haired girl sets down her plate and takes a moment to look at Akito and Touya, initial fondness replaced by slight distrust; Minori notices it and lifts her head to say cheerfully, “That’s Shinonome-san and Aoyagi-san! They’re my new friends!” Wet napkin in her hand seemingly forgotten, she gestures animatedly at her friend and smiles, now addressing them across the table. “This is my best friend and roommate, Kiritani Haruka!”</p><p>Haruka flinches a little. “Minori-chan, be careful with that napkin, you’re flinging milk all over!”</p><p>Minori deflates sheepishly. “Sorry.”</p><p>Taking a sip of coffee, Touya realizes the prestigious reputation of Shiba Music Academy’s students is ruined for him in whole by spilled milk. He’d expected to feel like the odd one out, and he supposes he still does, but for the opposite reason than he’d thought: somehow, he must be the most ordinary person here.</p><p>Although the schedule is similar, today is not a usual class day: it’s taken up completely by auditions for the various ensembles. Touya finds his name on the list and learns his audition is around noon, while Akito’s is closer to eleven, and after a quick trip back to the dorm to get their sheet music and respective instruments, the two of them find an empty practice room to use until their times arrive.</p><p>As Akito assembles his clarinet, Touya tightens and rosins his bow and rests his violin on his shoulder. He holds it in place with his chin as he begins the process of tuning; he hums an E as he brushes his bow lightly over the highest string and adjusts the tuning pegs, then tunes the other three strings accordingly.</p><p>“You can do that?” Akito asks from behind him, and Touya starts a little in surprise. He’d forgotten he isn’t alone. Playing violin tends to make him do that.</p><p>“Do what?”</p><p>“Tune to your humming. Isn’t that usually not good practice?” Shrugging, Touya grips the neck of his violin in his left hand and takes it off his shoulder. He usually tunes that way, and the method hasn’t ever really failed him. “Unless your ears are that well trained already, or you have perfect pitch. That’s what Ena would say, anyway.”</p><p>“Perfect pitch, I guess.” Touya muses. “It runs in my family, and I’ve also been trained musically since early childhood, which helps.” He swallows a comment about his pitch being the only positive to his extensive and extremely controlled childhood musical education.</p><p>“Does that mean you can sing well?” Akito inquires; Touya isn’t really sure where the question comes from but by the look on Akito’s face, there’s a meaning behind it somehow.</p><p>He furrows his brow, thinking of the few times he’s tried singing, not one of them a particularly spectacular experience. “I haven’t really tried to, not since a long time ago. It makes me nervous.” Akito doesn’t reply out loud, but his face stays curious yet kind, as if asking for an explanation. “It’s one thing to play something someone else wrote on the violin or the piano. Another thing to sing with your own voice in front of a crowd. Your voice is a part of you. An instrument-” he raises his left hand, still tight around the neck of the violin- “isn’t.”</p><p>Akito seems to consider this, because he looks down and studies his clarinet for a moment. “Don’t you think that’s freeing, though?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Akito lifts his head back up to make eye contact with Touya, his eyes suddenly intense, reminding Touya vividly of his sister. “That singing is so personal. No matter what you sing, you’re sharing a part of yourself with someone, expressing yourself with your own voice.”</p><p>“I guess I’ve never really thought about it that way,” Touya admits quietly, breaking their eye contact because of the sudden spark in Akito’s eye that makes him feel a little uneasy. It’s clear Akito has thought this through quite a few times, by the way he’s acting. “I’ve never really thought about music like that in general, really.”</p><p>He expects Akito to be confused or angry with him about it, but Akito only blinks slowly and relaxes, the fire in his eye starting to smoulder; he almost looks a little disappointed. “That’s understandable.”</p><p>“Father-” Touya starts, but he realizes he really doesn’t want to elaborate, and his voice falters. “Nevermind.”</p><p>The momentary look Akito gives him is soft and unassuming, but Touya blinks once and Akito is just finishing putting his clarinet together like he’s been doing it this whole time. Touya wonders if he’d dreamed it up. Touya takes that as a sign their discussion is done for now, so he turns back around, assumes a proper stance with his violin on his shoulder, and begins to play.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thank u for reading im doing my best! my twitter is now @/moremorejump if you want to talk to me!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>okay this time there are real things i want to explain before we start before i assume not everyone here has played in an orchestra/band before, and its good to have some background knowledge gfdfghgf</p><p>- ensemble is just = group<br/>- chamber ensemble (in this context) is a small group of instrumentalists, all of which play a single part, and have no conductor<br/>- symphony is the full grade ensemble<br/>- 'first/second/third/etc. chair' refers to where the player sits in the symphony- first chair sits closest to the conductor and often gets the solo parts/etc. it also literally refers to your skill level. generally if you're first chair youre the best at that instrument within the symphony/orchestra<br/>- rosin is some sticky stuff u rub on ur bowstrings before u play a stringed instrument it improves ur sound basically and helps ur bow stick to the strings. obviously<br/>- uhhh sightreading is when u play/sing a piece of music you don't know without prep or practice. ur reading the notes by sight. idk. i sing and im bad at it and i was abysmal on the cello in general</p><p>that should be it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The two or three days after auditions are understandably highly tense. They still have standard classes and individual private lessons, but everything feels a little disjointed with a big gap in the afternoons where Symphony and Chamber should be. Touya’s schedule isn’t terrible, except for the fact that he and Akito only share two classes. He supposes it makes sense because Akito plays woodwind and he plays strings, but a part of himself finds it unfortunate nonetheless.</p><p>It’s the same part of him that seems to ask for connection and pushes him to speak in times he usually would stay silent. He thinks in the beginning that it’s a new side to his personality he’s gained from being here, but on second thought, he wonders if it’s actually been with him his whole life. Maybe it’s only just now woken up.</p><p>Morning classes are shorter, and their afternoon lectures aren’t bad either. Touya is told by his piano teacher he has the option to skip Piano Proficiency 1 by taking credit by assessment, which he finds mildly relieving; it doesn’t bother him that he’ll have to continue taking piano lessons as long as they fit his level. On the other hand he hates his Science and Math classes, especially Science, because there’s nothing more tiring to him than chemistry.</p><p>Ensemble groups and placements are revealed on Thursday afternoon. Touya finds out he’s first chair violinist of Symphony and placed into the highest level chamber group for strings, somehow with Ena; her roommate, Mafuyu; and the person he correctly assumed to be Mizuki, who plays viola. He has half a mind to ask if he’s first violinist in Symphony because he’s a legacy, but he thinks the question sounds self-centered, so he doesn’t.</p><p>Akito manages the second chair clarinetist position in Symphony but he seems to beat himself up over it; when Touya asks, he denies anything.</p><p>His first Chamber rehearsal is pretty ordinary. When he walks into the practice room, violin case in hand, both Ena and Mafuyu seem like they don’t really know what to make of him. “Good afternoon, Aoyagi-san,” Ena is the first to speak, her double bass towering over her as she tunes it. Mafuyu sits next to her with her cello between her legs and pages through a binder of sheet music.</p><p>“Good morning.” Touya returns, sitting in the leftmost chair. The chair between him and Mafuyu remains empty.</p><p>“I wasn’t expecting to be in a chamber ensemble with you,” Ena says, not unkindly. Unzipping his violin case and tightening the hairs of his bow, Touya doesn’t reply. “It’s pretty rare for a first year to be in the highest ensemble, after all. You’re the first chair violinist in first year Symphony, then, right?”</p><p>Touya nods as he puts the lid on his rosin and positions his violin on his shoulder. “Where’d Akito place?” Ena asks, words edged with something suspiciously like worry.</p><p>“He's the second chair.” Touya replies.</p><p>Ena sighs, placing the stick of her bow on the shelf of her music stand so the hairs hang below. “How’d he react?”</p><p>Touya plays his E string softly and adjusts the peg a little. “He seemed mad at himself about it, but when I asked, he said it was nothing,” he moves to A, humming to himself softly.</p><p>Ena knits her brow. Touya notes that while she seems pushy and unrelenting in forcing Akito to do things, she has the same attitude now Touya expects she might have if he told her Akito had gotten himself detention. She is perplexed and concerned at the fact that Akito might be angry with himself, in a way that might suggest something akin to a mother if not for a constant underlying feeling of panic and worry. He wonders if Ena’s strong will when it comes to her little brother comes from a place of care, not a place of annoyance or embarrassment.</p><p>“I’ll have to talk to him later,” Ena says. “If he didn’t even tell you…” her voice trails off. Her last words give off a strange implication; does Ena think he’s that close to Akito already? They haven’t even known each other for a week.</p><p>Touya finishes tuning and the three of them sit in silence for a little while; Mafuyu still looking blankly at sheet music and Ena drumming her fingers against the side of her bass while deep in thought. The clock on the wall suggests they’re about ten minutes into their rehearsal.</p><p>As if reading his mind, Ena sighs impatiently. “Where’s Mizuki?” The question is rhetorical. “They’re ten minutes late!”</p><p>Mafuyu giggles. “You know them. They’ve got their own schedule.”</p><p>Right as she finishes speaking, Mizuki walks in casually, like they were waiting for someone to ask. “Hey!” they say brightly, as though they’re completely unaware of the time. They glance at Mafuyu and Ena as though they might be pieces of furniture but raise an eyebrow at Touya. “Who’s this?”</p><p>“Aoyagi Touya,” He says plainly. “Violinist.”</p><p>“He’s my brother’s best friend,” Ena suggests. Mizuki shrugs and sits in their place between him and Mafuyu.</p><p>“Oh, you’re an Aoyagi?” Mizuki asks, the way one might ask ‘what’s your favorite color?’. They act as though Touya’s family name is more interesting or notable than him being Akito’s best friend. The thought tastes sour on Touya’s tongue.</p><p>Ena frowns as they take out their sheet music and viola. “What’s that supposed to mean?”</p><p>“Oh, don’t you know? The Aoyagis are a well-known musical family that goes back generations. Apparently musical talent runs in their blood.” Mizuki studies Touya for another moment. “Judging by how this kid is a first year and in the highest string ensemble, I guess that’s true.”</p><p>“You say it as though you aren’t a first year yourself,” Mafuyu chides.</p><p>Mizuki pretends not to hear her, their attention fixed solely on Touya. He can tell they aren’t trying to be mean, but he can’t help feeling a little exposed by them regardless of their intention. “Anyway. Forgot to introduce myself. I’m Akiyama Mizuki. Nice to meet you!” Ena groans.</p><p>“Would you just tune your viola? We’re fifteen minutes into rehearsal already!”</p><p>Mafuyu laughs softly again. “Ena,” she says lightly, “What are we even supposed to be playing?”</p><p>Touya hadn’t even thought about that, and neither did Ena, if the look on her face is any indication. “Couldn’t we just play something from last year?”</p><p>Gesturing to Touya, Mizuki looks entertained. “Aoyagi-san here doesn’t have the music.”</p><p>Ena sighs. “We’ll have to visit the library then.”</p><p>“What did you play?” Touya asks quietly. He opens the cover of his binder, which is already over half full of sheet music he’s played before that he thought might be smart to keep on hand. Mizuki flips through their music to show him: he recognizes a piece he played last spring. “I’ve done this one,” he says, finding his copy of the music in his own collection, “I haven’t played it in awhile, though.”</p><p>“Not bad.” Mizuki muses. They turn to Mafuyu and Ena. “Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E flat minor.”</p><p>For playing it mostly by sight-reading, Touya doesn’t do bad, although he messes up in a few places; since they’re a chamber ensemble, they have no conductor, and a few patches of uneven tempo is to be expected anyway. He finds they make a pretty stable group.</p><p>They spend the rest of the rehearsal brainstorming what kind of music they want to play. The consensus is generally the same between all of them, and Touya appreciates the concentration; it takes them all by surprise when Mafuyu points out they’ve gone overtime and that they’ll be late to dinner if they don’t leave immediately.</p><p>He sits with Akito during dinner, just like always. When Touya asks about Akito’s chamber group he learns he’s in the same ensemble as Minori and her friend Haruka, who plays flute. Their fourth member is a short boy named Tsukasa on tenor saxophone, and Akito complains about how he blows way too hard into his horn and it gives him a headache. He doesn’t elaborate further.</p><p>Tonight is Akito’s private clarinet lesson, so Touya decides to look around in the library in the west wing while he waits for him to finish. Just as he thought, it’s a decent size, though he wouldn’t be surprised if he found out there’s more sheet music than literature on the shelves. The books they have are old and a little dated- he supposes as a prestigious performing arts academy they favor the classics. They’re just not terribly interesting to Touya.</p><p>He ends up paging through vocal scores before he really realizes it; maybe his and Akito’s conversation from a few days ago had really left an impression on him after all. He finds a song about love in one of the books, from what he assumes is either an opera or a musical, and he remembers what Akito had said that day about singing feeling personal, straight from the heart. The thoughts twist and turn in Touya’s mind and he starts feeling confused, so he closes the book and starts studying for Algebra.</p><p>He’s barely done with the second problem when Akito comes back from his lesson. Seeing him walk through the library door, Touya notices for what must be the third or fourth time that week how strange Akito looks in his uniform.</p><p>When he reaches Touya’s table, he frowns, eyes tired, his clarinet case thrown over his shoulder. “Aoyagi, are you ready to go?” Touya nods and yawns, puts his things away, and stands, making sure to push his chair in behind him. “I didn’t know this library was so nice.”</p><p>“Their book collection isn’t the best,” Touya replies.</p><p>“Of course not, according to you,” Akito hums. He seems relaxed, finally, after the events of today, so while Touya wants to ask him how his lesson went, he decides not to. “Is their music selection good?”</p><p>“Yes.” They leave the library and turn to start on a flight of stairs that goes to the third floor.</p><p>“Did you hear the rumors?” Akito turns so he can face Touya as he ascends the stairs, a twinkle in his eye.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Akito’s grin only grows. “Well, rumor has it they’re going to let us go to Aokusa this weekend.”</p><p>“Oh.” A clock on the wall of the hallway shows the time: 8:36 p.m. Touya wonders how he already feels so exhausted this early in the evening.</p><p>Akito turns back to the stairs. “You’re so responsive,” he says sarcastically. Touya ignores the comment, made in good humor. “You know what this means?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I might have a chance at living out my teenage years after all.” They reach the third floor and take a turn into another corridor, passing a few practice rooms. The lights are still on, even though Touya thought he’d heard at some point that practice rooms are closed at eight.</p><p>“Congratulations, Shinonome-san.”</p><p>Akito makes a face. “I hate it when you call me that.”</p><p>“What? Shinonome-san?”</p><p>“We’re friends. Just call me Akito.”</p><p>Touya nods, his chest feeling light all of a sudden. “You can call me Touya, then,” he replies quietly as the pair turn into their hallway and reach their door.</p><p>“Cool.” Akito replies, sounding a little awkward. He opens the door for the two of them and promptly lets out a groan. “Oh no.”</p><p>“What?” Entering the dorm behind him, Touya looks around the room, scanning for any oddities. His eyes eventually rest on his bedside table, which holds something it hadn’t when he’d left this morning: a white envelope. On Akito’s is a package wrapped in brown paper.</p><p>“We got mail.”</p><p>Touya’s letter is not written by his father, like he’d half expected, maybe even hoped, but instead by their housekeeper, who Touya assumes probably misses him most. The letter is sweet, written in her antique and delicate handwriting, complaining about how his father has done nothing but sit in his study like always, and how no matter how hard she scrubs she can’t get the stain out of the carpet in the drawing room on the second floor; things she would have told him over late night cocoa back when he was still beginning middle school.</p><p>Back then, no one would be around except him during colder months, since his older brothers were at boarding school. It was lonely for both Touya and the housekeeper, since their father would have nothing to do except practice for days on end, getting ready for whatever recital he’d have. Touya started helping with the chores and the cleaning, and afterwards they’d talk for hours into the night over hot chocolate. She is one of the few people Touya actually trusts, the number of which has continued to dwindle ever since his mother passed away.</p><p>He closes the letter and sets it gently into the drawer of his bedside table. He turns his attention to Akito, his package opened and a letter in his hand. “What did you get?” he asks.</p><p>“Stupid stuff.”</p><p>And that is that.</p><p>The next morning, Touya and Akito have Musical Theory together. Now that Akito’s said something to him about it, Touya starts noticing mentions of Aokusa all the time: it seems Akito isn’t the only person who’s looking forward to going.</p><p>Akito pulls out a pen (which is decorated with cartoon cats, Touya notices; he definitely hadn’t had that pen yesterday) and empty staff paper to take notes on while Touya doodles in his margins, deep in thought. “What do you think?” he hears Akito ask him.</p><p>“About what?”</p><p>“Going to Aokusa.”</p><p>“Oh,” Touya thinks for a moment. “I don’t know. You seem excited about it, so I guess I am too.”</p><p>“Isn’t there anything you like to do in the city? Not even where you come from?”</p><p>“Not really. I’ve never spent much time in the city. Only for recitals.”</p><p>Akito frowns, looking a little disappointed. Touya starts a new doodle, which he realizes looks suspiciously like one of the cats on Akito’s pen. He scribbles it out before Akito notices. He’s about to say something, but someone sits down on Touya’s other side and interrupts. “Hi.” It’s Akiyama Mizuki, again. </p><p>“Hello,” Akito greets smoothly, his personality taking a sharp turn all of a sudden. Confused, Touya knits his brow.</p><p>“You’re Enanan’s little brother, right? Akito-kun?” Akito’s face turns dark for a moment.</p><p>“Yep. I haven’t seen you in this class before. If you need any of the notes, let me know.” They talk as though Touya isn’t sitting between them, and Touya doesn’t really mind it. </p><p>“Ah, I didn’t come on Tuesday,” Mizuki shrugs. “By the way, Enanan wants to talk to you.”</p><p>“Of course she does.” Akito grumbles. Mizuki notices as Akito picks up his kitty pen, their face lighting up.</p><p>Before Akito can hide it, they say something about it. “Oh, do you collect that set?” Mizuki pulls out their pencil case- light pink and frilly, with uneven stitching that suggests they might have made it themself- and unzips it, showing Akito the contents. “So do I!”</p><p>Touya knows Akito is actually kind of excited, and he poorly tries to hide the fact. “I don’t. My parents just sent me these yesterday and I’m using them because I lost my other ones.”</p><p>“Ah… of course.” Mizuki remarks. “Silly me!” They make eye contact with Touya and wink. Touya doesn’t reply, but he does find it a little entertaining that Akito would rather lie and claim he managed to lose every single one of his pens within three school days than admit to collecting cute kitty stationery.</p><p>A few minutes later, their teacher comes in and asks the class to quiet down so she can speak. “Before we begin today, us teachers were asked to address some rumors that have been floating around the school as to avoid any misunderstandings.” Akito’s eyes narrow as he balances his pen on his finger.</p><p>“I’m sure the majority of you have heard the rumor that we will be allowing students to visit Aokusa on Saturday afternoon. This is incorrect.” A fog of murmurs starts to rise between the students in the room, and their teacher raises her left arm to tell them to let her continue.</p><p>“Starting next weekend, not this coming weekend, we will be allowing students with parental permission to go to Aokusa for a few hours during the afternoon on Saturdays. Your parents have already been notified, and many have already given- or denied- permission. This is different from last year because of an unfortunate event that transpired between students within the city late last year.” Akito’s pen falls onto the table and he covers it with his hand, drumming his fingers impatiently.</p><p>Mizuki raises their hand and the teacher gestures for them to speak. “How do we know whether our parents have given permission or not?”</p><p>“You’ll find out on Sunday when you go to sign up for extracurricular activities. If your parents haven’t given word by then, you’ll be allowed to call them on an office phone.” Touya would like to believe his father gave him permission, but a nagging feeling in his gut causes him to doubt it. He turns to look at Akito, and the look on his face makes him wonder if Akito’s having the same thoughts about his own parents.</p><p>“That’s the only information I have to give you on the subject.”</p><p>Touya spends the rest of the class preoccupied, staring out the window at the courtyard. Maybe he’s getting ahead of himself, thinking his father would understand him wanting to go to Aokusa. Did his brothers ever care to go? Maybe he’s just overreacting.</p><p>“Touya?” a voice asks behind him. “Are you okay?” It’s Akito; class must be over. He realizes he hadn’t paid attention to anything during the lecture since he’d let his mind run wild, completely spacing out.</p><p>“Yeah.” Touya nods, turning his attention to his staff paper, completely blank except for the doodles around the edges of the lines. Akito frowns at him with something in his eye that looks like worry; Touya’s seen the same expression on Ena before.</p><p>“Let’s get coffee from the student cafe,” Akito suggests, and Touya relaxes. He can’t say no to that.</p><p>“Talk to your sister, first,” Mizuki retorts as they stand to leave the classroom, pushing their chair in with a huff. “If you don’t, she’s going to track you down by her own devices.”</p><p>“Oh, shut up.” Akito says at their back under his breath.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>touya, sitting between akito and mizuki, doodling cats and ignoring them: :3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>im sorry for the wait on this. it was a mix of this chapter being extremely hard for me to write, class starting up again, and my adhd. so </p><p>uhh when touya talks about his and akitos' family names falling high in the alphabet hes referring to the japanese alphabet '(A) I U E O KA KI KU KE KO SA (SHI) SU SE SO etc'</p><p>otherwise im sorry in advance</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They find Ena in the courtyard, sitting in the grass with a pencil and a sketchbook. Her face shows intense concentration, but Akito doesn’t hesitate to go up to her. “What do you want, Ena?” he asks plainly. She looks up at Akito and then to Touya, who stands behind him, as if trying to figure out what’s going on. “Akiyama said you’d be looking for me.”</p><p>“To talk to you,” Ena says simply, then addresses Touya. “Aoyagi-san, I’d like to talk to Akito in private, if that’s alright. If you can find Mafuyu, she’s picked out a few song possibilities for Chamber; both Mizuki and I have given our opinions on them, so you should too.” Touya nods serenely, knowing Ena wasn’t just trying to get rid of him, as she’d told him already what she wanted to talk to him about. It really didn’t bother him. “She should be at the student cafe.”</p><p>“I’ll come find you when we’re done,” Akito tells him, his expression guarded. “Since we were planning to go there anyway.”</p><p>“Alright.”</p><p>Mafuyu is sitting in the student cafe with another student, both staring into space. She sits with her back straight, perfect posture, while her friend is curled into a ball, as if trying to protect herself from any outside threat. Touya almost feels like said threat, and he doesn’t want to bother them and whatever telepathic bonding they must be doing, but he does anyway.</p><p>“Asahina-san,” he asks softly, trying not to impose himself. “Good morning.”</p><p>“Aoyagi-san.” She smiles thinly. “Did Ena send you?”</p><p>“Yes.” Mafuyu moves to take something out of her bag, as Touya glances around the cafe.</p><p>The ceiling is low, and the walls feel a little tight around them, as though they might be little dolls in a shoebox. The tables are circular and made of polished dark wood, matching the chairs, which sit around them in sets of twos and threes. The bar takes up about a fifth of the room itself, looking cramped in a way that makes Touya wonder if it was added as a second thought. What makes the cafe seem especially claustrophobic is the dim lighting, possibly more from lack of light fixture than an aesthetic choice.</p><p>“You can pull up a chair,” states the girl sitting across from Mafuyu. Her hair is thin and long, possibly longer than Touya’s ever seen before. Her eyes- a shockingly light blue- are unwavering, boring right into Touya’s face, sizing him up with only a glance. Touya decides to pull up a chair.</p><p>“Oh, this is my friend, Yoisaki Kanade,” Mafuyu says, not looking up from paging through her sheet music folder. “She’s also friends with Ena and Mizuki.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you.” Touya says to her. She nods, face blank, as Mafuyu takes out a packet of papers held together with a paperclip. He understands why these two girls would get along, and realizes a few moments after the thought that he probably would fit in right alongside them.</p><p>The four songs Mafuyu shows him are pretty different: one is even written for a completely different ensemble of instruments. When he points this out to her, thinking it’s a mistake, Mafuyu just smiles. “I thought the four of us wouldn’t have much trouble arranging that one for our ensemble. We’ll have to write or arrange our own pieces for third term anyway.”</p><p>“This one has a very complicated violin part,” Touya points at another piece, “But it seems doable, with practice. I’ve played this one before-” he gestures to the third one- “But I wouldn’t mind playing it again.” Mafuyu nods thoughtfully, taking a sip of her drink, which must be a cappuccino or a latte, because it leaves a tiny line of froth on her top lip. “And this last one is easy, but mastery of the piece lies in the direction.”</p><p>“That’s the general consensus,” Mafuyu notes, holding her mug in her hands. “And why I can’t choose. All of these pieces are good.”</p><p>“I’d rather arrange the first one or do the second.” The other two are okay, but he fears his brothers or his father will give him a hard time if he chooses an easier one.</p><p>Mafuyu sighs and Kanade shifts her position so she’s sitting on the chair properly (aside from her posture). “That’s what Ena and Mizuki said, too,” she informs him lightly.</p><p>“How am I supposed to choose?” Mafuyu gripes. The idea of letting chance decide pops into Touya’s head, but before he can verbalize it, Kanade speaks.</p><p>“I have an idea.” Mafuyu glances at her with wary curiosity. “Can you give me a week?”</p><p>Touya looks to Mafuyu, who nods. “I suppose so.”</p><p>“Then I’ll write you a piece, as long as you can arrange it, because I don’t know anything about playing stringed instruments.” Kanade shrugs, as if writing music is a completely ordinary feat. “Just give me those two pieces so I can use them as inspiration.”</p><p>“We’d appreciate it if you could,” Mafuyu agrees. “Thank you, Kanade.”</p><p>There’s a few beats of awkward silence until Mafuyu’s face lights up and she turns to Touya. “Aoyagi-san! Ena, Mizuki, and I were thinking about going to a recital together in Aokusa for inspiration, would you like to join us? We can use it as reference for our ensemble.”</p><p>Touya frowns. “Yeah. Maybe.”</p><p>“Alright, let me know,” Mafuyu’s eyes turn soft, seeming to understand.</p><p>They fall silent afterwards, and Touya gets confirmation that he fits in quite well with the two and their quiet form of ‘hanging out’, one that requires not much more than existing. They continue to stay like that until Ena and Akito come, Mafuyu snapping out of it to smile at them, as though all of her previous preoccupations have quickly evaporated.</p><p>“Are you two done?” she asks warmly.</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>A few minutes later, Touya sits with Akito at a different table, as far away as possible from Mafuyu, Kanade, and Ena, who sits at the chair Touya had initially pulled up for himself. Looking back at him, Touya realizes Akito’s eyes seem distant, like he’s looking through Touya instead of focused on him. “How was it?”</p><p>“Fine.”</p><p>Touya narrows his eyes. “You’re sure?” He’s never really pried when it comes to Akito and Ena’s relationship or their business, but something tells him whatever the issue is, it runs deeper. Staring down at his reflection in his mug of hot chocolate, Akito’s expression darkens. “I may be quiet, but I’m not bad at reading people.”</p><p>“It’s hard to explain.” He mutters.</p><p>“There are a lot of clarinetists here,” Swirling his coffee around, Touya breathes in a little deeper, letting the familiar scent of coffee calm his nerves. “Second chair is impressive.”</p><p>Akito lifts his head. “That’s not the point. I had to get first.” But instead of determination in his eye, there’s a sort of panicked fear, one that wraps itself around Touya’s neck and doesn't let go.</p><p>“Why?” The question sounds stupid, but he doesn’t even think before it leaves his mouth. Akito has never come off as being necessarily dedicated to or passionate about the clarinet, to the point where Touya wonders if by asking that question he’s asking why Akito had to get first or why Akito even cares so much to begin with, when it’s clearly only giving him stress. Ambition should motivate one when they are faced with opportunities, not just amplify their failure or shortcomings.</p><p>Akito deflates, opening his mouth slightly to explain something, but before he can, the two are approached by a short blond boy who looks visibly angry. “Fuck.” Akito says under his breath, taking a sip of cocoa to seem occupied.</p><p>“Shinonome!” says the boy. “We promised to meet today!”</p><p>“Tenma-san,” Akito shifts his attitude, giving him an apologetic yet pained smile. “I must have forgotten. Touya, if you’ll excuse me.” Touya gives him a dark look in response but doesn’t say anything.</p><p>He’s not angry; he doesn’t feel angry. It’s like Akito is drifting away ever so slightly, holding something in that should be let out. He may feel a little annoyed, but what’s irritating is that Akito doesn’t seem to think it’s important enough to address and won’t let anyone drag it out of him.</p><p>Saturday night, the school atmosphere is bubbling over with excitement over the Aokusa news to be announced the next day. Touya doesn’t even hear anything about extracurriculars, even though that was the main point of the meetings with the office staff, except for from Ena, who says something about wanting to join the Visual Arts Club. Touya has no idea which extracurricular he wants to do, but since one is required, he decides he’ll just join something like the Library Organization Club, if that even exists. He’ll be the only one in it, and he won’t have to talk to anyone.</p><p>But the thought of Aokusa tugs on his gut every time it resurfaces. He’s going to hate to have to tell Akito his father won’t let him go, because he’s pretty certain that’s what’s going to happen. He tries to dismiss it as overreaction or anxiety, but his worries take root in reality and the past. Akito doesn’t seem too worried about it.</p><p>He and Akito have been a little awkward around each other since Friday morning, but not so much they avoid each other. In fact, Akito just seems a little more willing to crack jokes, and Touya to listen, but that’s all that happens. Even with all of the mentions of it going on around them, Akito hasn’t said anything about Aokusa at all, and it makes Touya feel uneasy.</p><p>After Sunday morning brunch, everyone is gathered into the commons and library area to wait to be called into the office. Touya wonders why it has to be so private and such a big deal, since all they’re doing is signing up for clubs and hearing from their parents, but he doesn’t really care enough to voice that confusion. Instead, he busies himself by looking through the library’s extensive collection of Mishima Yukio. He’ll be one of the first people called, since his family name falls high alphabetically, and Akito won’t be far after him; he wonders how long he’ll have to stay in the library afterwards, waiting for everyone else to finish up. </p><p>When his name is eventually called he’s a chapter or so into a book in spite of himself, finding it mildly interesting enough to capture his attention. He commits the page number to memory- page 23- and puts the book back, where he hopes it’ll remain until he can come back and continue reading it.</p><p>The office wing makes the rest of the school building seem only ordinary. The floor is white tile and the walls are edged in carved dark wood he’s sure has been there for a century at the least, the ceiling tall and airy. The woman he’s brought to is older, but unlike the other teachers he’s met so far, she seems gentler and wound not quite as tight, smiling as he sits in the straight-backed chair across from her.</p><p>“You’re not the first Aoyagi to sit at my desk,” she smiles kindly, taking a thick packet off of a stack of papers on her left and sliding it across to him. “Here is the list of extracurriculars and other information regarding them.”</p><p>He flips through it, scanning for anything of interest. There’s a Fashion Design Club, which he finds a little entertaining, and an Equestrian Sports Club; he had no idea Shiba Music Academy kept horses. He flips past a book club, swearing it off immediately, and eventually comes across the Tabletop Gaming Club, which looks like something only nerds and eccentrics would want to join. He decides he fits under the nerd category well enough.</p><p>“I’ll join the Tabletop Gaming Club,” he tells the woman, who nods affirmatively, turning to the desktop computer on her far right to register him. Touya remembers stopping at an arcade after school a few times in middle school, and he ended up being alright at a few of the games. He hopes that drop of talent carries over.</p><p>“Concerning Aokusa,” the woman shifts the topic of conversation, and Touya feels his stomach drop onto the floor. “Your guardians have not been in touch with us yet. We can call for you, or you can call them yourself.” Touya weighs these two options. He’s never really asked his father for permission for anything before, but there’s a chance he could get him to agree.</p><p>“I’ll talk to my father myself.”</p><p>The phone rings a few times before anyone picks up.</p><p>“Aoyagi household. Please state your name and business.” It’s the housekeeper, her voice frayed with age and uncharacteristically businesslike as she addresses the supposed stranger over the phone.</p><p>“It’s me.”</p><p>“Touya!” The atmosphere brightens immediately; he can practically hear her smiling. “What can I help you with, dear?”</p><p>“I need to talk to Father.”</p><p>“Just a moment,” she replies, he catches some background noise, the distant and mechanical voices of her and his father. His father’s voice seems to flip a switch in his head somewhere; he straightens his back and lowers his hand- which had been fidgeting with the phone cord- into his lap.</p><p>There’s another beat of silence as his father takes the phone. “Touya. What do you need?”</p><p>“I have a question.” He’s uneasy, but not afraid.</p><p>“Which is?” His father asks impatiently, almost like he’s asking what a question is.</p><p>Touya bites his lip- so his father really had no idea? Has he even seen the letter? “The school sent out a letter a week or so ago about Aokusa.” His father hums in response, like Touya’s only wasting his time. “On Saturdays, they’re going to let us go, as long as we have parental permission.”</p><p>“It seems strange they wouldn’t have included this within all of the other paperwork I had to do for you,” his father says offhandedly; Touya would like to mention he brought that all on himself- he hadn’t even let Touya see the course syllabi- but he just bites his tongue. “So you’re asking my permission?”</p><p>“Yes.” Touya knows what’s coming.</p><p>“I’m not sure that’s much of a use to you,” He can already feel himself deflating, but his father continues, blissfully unaware.</p><p>“A friend of mine-” His mind is running to catch up with his words, and he falters as he tries to figure out how to phrase it. “A friend of mine really wants to go.”</p><p>“Don’t forget why you’re there, Touya.” His father reminds him, voice suddenly cold and stern instead of dismissive. “The city is nothing special. It’s messy, dirty, and crowded, and filled with dreamers with no real purpose. You’re at the Academy to study.”</p><p>“Yes, father.”</p><p>“I’ve made myself clear, haven’t I?” Touya feels like someone has thrown a bucket of hot water at his back; the feeling washes over his body and settles in his chest. Lost, his mind starts throwing out random words, useless things he tries to grasp onto as his thoughts run.</p><p>Why has being here changed him so much, like this, when he was here for the opposite reason? This is the final part of his education before he becomes a soloist or a music professor or something like that, and for the first time in his life, he’s failing.</p><p>That’s what his father would say, anyway.</p><p>“Wait,” Touya says, breath hitching in his throat. “This friend of mine- he wants to go for the music. That’s why it’s open for students in the first place.”</p><p>“If you believe there is not enough teaching of musical arts being done at the Academy, you shouldn’t be wasting your time there,” his father bites back, voice steel. The office woman from earlier sticks her head in the doorway, sends him a wide-eyed glance, and leaves, and Touya realizes he’s taking too much time. “Touya, why are you arguing with me?”</p><p>He ignores the question, his voice dark. “There are frequent recitals there,” he relaxes the fist he’s made unknowingly with his right hand. “A girl- Asahina-san, she’s in my chamber ensemble- asked me if I’d go and see a performance with her and the rest of the ensemble so we’d have something to reflect on together. There’s a cafe on 42nd Street that specializes in featuring classical soloists, I’m sure you’ve heard of it.” He doesn’t like playing that card. He shouldn’t have to.</p><p>“Your mother has nothing to do with this.”</p><p>“Yes she does,” Touya feels his gut twist. “Why won’t you let me talk about her anymore? She loved that cafe. She-” His voice breaks. He’d told Akito he didn’t really care about going himself. But this goes beyond a day trip, beyond a corner cafe that’s probably closed down by now. </p><p>“One toe out of line, and I’m pulling you out of that school. Do you understand me?”</p><p>Touya does not respond. He’s afraid that if he does, he’ll end up crying.</p><p>“I will give you my permission for now, and when you come back for winter break, we’re going to reevaluate your commitment.” Touya blinks, still feeling like there’s a rock shoved in his throat. “Do not embarrass me.”</p><p>The line goes dead.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>fun chapter next time i promise ! im very excited to write it!!!!</p><p>twt: @/moremorejump ! come find me !</p><p>another note: the amount of hits this fic has is absolutely astounding to me i have no idea where you are all coming from but i appreciate it! i originally thought i would get like maybe 60 hits if i was lucky aahh,, thank you all so much for reading this labor of love</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>just realized i forgot to add tags but FGHJKHGFDSDFGHJK windows five everyone! idk this is pretty light so ! except also not at the same time idk!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was as if life and color had died with Mother.</p><p>It was only a month and a day or two ago that she’d been lost to sickness. He couldn’t tell if Father was grieving or not, for he had been stone-faced and distant, retracting into himself.</p><p>His lessons continued; if anything, they only got more intense. He had to bandage his left fingertips because of the blistering, and his right wrist was starting to swell and sore from bowing, but playing piano, his only alternative, wasn’t much better either. But he didn’t mind it, because it helped him take his mind off of things. He didn’t even really notice the pain.</p><p>There were three days until he turned fourteen. Although he was still young, he didn’t really see his birthday as anything special, because neither did anyone around him, except the housekeeper. He was happy she tried to keep his spirits up.</p><p>Today, nothing was keeping his thoughts away, it seemed, not even violin. His teacher continued to reprimand him while he made mistakes, but it was as if he didn’t notice. The room they were in was on the fourth floor, and a floor-to-ceiling window to his right proved more interesting than the music written on the page in front of him.</p><p>He stared out at the gardens, watching the birds fly by and the water in the fountain gurgle just like always. After another mistake, his teacher stopped him altogether and asked why he was acting so strangely. “I just think it’s interesting,” he replied, “Some things never change.”</p><p>Ten minutes later, his teacher left in a fit of frustration.</p><p>He put his violin down and went over to the window, an out-of-place movement catching his eye almost immediately. He was still, waiting curiously to identify the source, until his eyes finally landed on it, and he was taken by surprise. A child not much younger than him had somehow gotten into the garden, and she wasn’t afraid of being seen.</p><p>She must have been as shocked to see him as he was to see her, because she froze in a way similar to a small animal, but unlike him, she relaxed moments later. She waved. He, though still somewhat confused, waved back. He should have probably told his father there was a trespasser in the garden, but for some reason, he just couldn’t tell his feet to move.</p><p>The girl looking at him through the window was probably twelve, or maybe eleven, with messy brown hair and rosy cheeks, like she’d been spending the May afternoon outside without a care in the world. He wondered how it felt to live like that, with nothing to lose, nothing more to do than to sneak into other peoples’ gardens. She smiled at him. He smiled back.</p><p>He didn’t notice when his father entered the room behind him. “Touya.”</p><p>One by one, he imagined the flowers in the garden fading and wilting away, and then he turned around. “Yes, father?” The bandage on his right index finger was beginning to come loose, so he tightened it.</p><p>“Your teacher told me you’re horribly distracted by the window.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, father.”</p><p>He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t play when your fingers are blistering, they’ll get worse, and your hands will be useless.”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>“If you don’t focus, I’ll move your lessons to a room without windows.” As his father spoke, he stared at his shadow on the floor in front of him, cast by the sunlight coming in through the glass. If he tried hard enough, he could imagine himself out there, not in here. “Do you understand?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>His father left, and he turned back to the window, the girl now nowhere to be seen.</p><p>If only he could break the glass.</p>
<hr/><p>The feeling of anxiety grips him so tightly he’s barely aware of his surroundings as he goes back to the library. Anger, fear, resentment, everything he’s used to feeling after talking to his father but amplified, even more personal than before. He’s had a glimpse of the light out of that shadow he thought had been protecting him, and the thought of returning to the dark is more frightening than the dark itself.</p><p>Akito is waiting for him in the library, which is half reassuring. “Touya, how’d it go?”</p><p>“Fine.” He tries to say it nonchalantly, but his voice comes out weak. “I… got permission.”</p><p>“You certainly don’t seem fine,” Akito notes.</p><p>“Don’t be a hypocrite.”</p><p>Akito’s face falls. “Sorry.” Touya can tell he means it. The truth is, he’d like to tell Akito what had just happened instead of letting it sit in the forefront of his mind- especially since he thinks Akito might be helpful in figuring out his current situation- but enough is troubling him right now. Besides, if Akito wouldn’t trust Touya with what’s obviously bothering him, why should Touya trust Akito with his own issues? “I’ll tell you eventually.”</p><p>“Whenever you’re ready.”</p><p>They’re awkwardly silent for a moment or so until Touya takes a deep breath and decides he’d better relieve himself from the multiple different factors of tension. “I’m going to go sit down.” He scans the rest of the library, seeing the chair he had been sitting and reading in earlier is now occupied by someone else. He might have to sit by the shelves.</p><p>“Touya.” Akito’s eyes look intense, in trademark Shinonome fashion.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>He sighs sheepishly. “I’m… glad you got permission.”</p><p>Something pulls at the side of Touya’s lips, something suspiciously like a small smile, in spite of himself. He tries to keep a straight face regardless. “Me too.” He makes his way over to the books.</p><p>Akito, around twenty minutes later, tells him with a determined and mischievous smile that his parents had said yes, too. At the mention of his parents, Touya knits his brow, because he’d realized he’d never really heard Akito talk about them before. “What’s wrong?” Akito asks him.</p><p>“I’ve never heard you talk about your parents before.”</p><p>Akito’s expression suddenly turns dark. “Oh.” Touya realizes there must be more there, but he doesn’t want to ask about it because honestly, he’s sort of tired of trying to coax Akito open to no avail.</p><p>The next few days feel heavy and thick, like time is wading through mud. He assumes it’s because of the dread he feels thinking about that phone call- the words continue to bounce around in his mind, as though trying to jailbreak. Akito doesn’t move to talk to him about anything, and Touya wonders if it means they're drifting apart. He hopes it doesn’t. Touya will not accept possibly sacrificing all he has ever known for nothing in the end, especially if the only thing standing in his way is the fact that Akito can’t grow up and figure himself out.</p><p>That’s why he’s close to doing something he’s never, ever done before: skip a class (or in this case, an extracurricular), because he’s really not in the mood to play Monopoly or anything like it. However, when he learns Akito has successfully made himself go to Fashion Design Club of all things, he decides he can probably make it to his own club. It’s not like he’ll have to deal with many people.</p><p>He’s right. Kind of. Because even while the people in Tabletop Gaming Club are few, they share enough energy between them to fuel a crowd.</p><p>When he gets to the club room on Thursday afternoon, his mind immediately brings up his earlier quote about nerds and eccentrics being the only types of people into tabletop gaming. He was definitely spot on with that premonition.</p><p>He opens the door to a very tiny girl he recognizes from the train ride here: short pink hair and sparkly wide eyes that look at him like he’s the most exciting thing she’s ever seen. It’s like she’s waiting there for him. “Hi!”</p><p>He blinks. “...Hello?”</p><p>“Emu!” chides another voice, which belongs to the blonde boy Touya recognizes as Tsukasa. He and two other people- one boy, one girl- sit around the head of a table in front of a shelf of games. “Would you <i>please</i> stop doing that!”</p><p>“Uhh… it’s fine, really…” Touya mutters. He walks past the pink girl, her energy coming off of her in waves. It makes Touya almost a little afraid of her. Tsukasa smiles warily at him.</p><p>“Oh, you’re Shinonome’s friend! I’m Tenma Tsukasa!” He says it like he expects Touya to applause. Touya just stares at him, dumbfounded.</p><p>“I’m Emu!” says the tiny girl in pink. “Otori Emu! But you can just call me Emu! ‘Cause saying my first name will make you smile, right?!” she blinks, like she expects him to answer.</p><p>“Hey, Emu…” says the other girl, sitting by Tsukasa at the table. Her hair is sort of a drab green; it’s long, but it doesn’t seem like she really brushes it all that often. “Chill out, would you?” Tsukasa, sitting on her right, laughs arrogantly. “You too, Tsukasa.” His face falls.</p><p>“My, my… everyone has so much energy…” muses the other boy to the girl’s left. His hair is bright purple and blue, and his cat-eyed smirk makes it seem like he’s up to trouble.</p><p>“Rui, you’re just-”</p><p>“My goodness, no need to be so blunt about it, Nene,” he frowns, feigning surprise. He gestures to the seat on his left, looking at Touya with yellow eyes that seem to know everything but nothing at all at the same time. “You can sit here, if you’d like.” Touya takes the seat.</p><p>Emu sits down across from him, still smiling brightly despite Nene’s complaining.</p><p>“Let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?” Rui clasps his palms together and sets them on the table. Nene glares at him. “I’m Kamishiro Rui, the resident robotics genius.”</p><p>“Resident weirdo.”</p><p>Rui looks at her with strained politeness. “Why don’t you go next?”</p><p>“I’m the only person who hasn’t introduced myself yet, so yeah, that would make sense.” She rolls her eyes. “Genius. Yeah, right,” she mutters sarcastically. Emu is watching the two of them argue animatedly, her bright eyes never losing their spark. “Kusanagi Nene,” says Nene lightly, turning her attention to Touya. She doesn’t seem no-nonsense; rather, she seems exhausted.</p><p>“This is Drama Club!” exclaims Emu, like she’s been waiting for years to finally tell Touya. “We’ve been best friends for-”</p><p>“This is <i>not</i> Drama Club,” interrupts Tsukasa, aggravated.</p><p>“Stop being angry!” Emu frowns. She has little pink cowlicks on both sides of her head, which look sort of like antennas. “We’ve been best friends since middle school, and we met in Drama Club! So I think of us as Drama Club! It’s like our squad name!” Nene groans, like she’s heard it all before.</p><p>“At first, we just went to normal school! But then Nene said she was going to go here for high school, so the rest of us came with her! Also, Nene-chan and Rui-kun have been best friends since preschool, which is way longer than the rest of us-”</p><p>“That’s enough, Emu… geez.”</p><p>Touya reviews his original impression of the group of eccentrics- although they seem like they don’t get along, they certainly must like each other enough to all follow Nene to a prestigious music school just because they didn’t want to be separated. “Anyway, who are you?”</p><p>“Oh, uh… Aoyagi Touya.”</p><p>“Okay! Touya! That’s a <i>wonderhoi</i> name!”</p><p>“Uh, a... what?”</p><p>“Don’t mind her,” remarks Tsukasa.</p><p>“<i>Wonderhoi!</i> It’s like… wonderful, only better!”</p><p>“Um… cool.”</p><p>“Yeah! <i>Wonderhoi!</i>” she grins wide.</p><p>Touya surveys the rest of the people in the room, and despite their earlier reprimands, the three are looking at Emu fondly. He feels a bit like a guest at someone else's house, watching the family dynamic at the dinner table.</p><p>“Now, what game shall we play?” Rui asks, turning his head to address everyone sitting around the table. His and Emu’s eyes share a similar sort of energy, though Rui’s are more mischievous.</p><p>Nene raises her hand. “I’ll just nap,” she volunteers.</p><p>“Vetoed,” retorts Tsukasa. Nene frowns.</p><p>“Uno!” Emu shouts.</p><p>“Sure.” Nene shrugs. “Anyone object?”</p><p>No one objects.</p><p>If introductions were a mess, the actual club activities are a disaster, but Touya would be lying if he doesn’t admit he has fun and even smiles a few times. Though he’s not a people person, the rest of the members seem to respect that in their own special ways. They don’t make him talk much, but he’s not forgotten or excluded. He’d even won one of the Uno games- the second or third, he doesn’t remember. It’s nice, but he’s exhausted by the end of the club meeting.</p><p>When he gets back to the dorm, he doesn’t even say a word to Akito before collapsing on his bed. Akito watches him come in, taking his attention from his chemistry textbook and looking at him with heavy eyes. “How was it?” Touya only sighs in response.</p><p>“How are you that tired from Tabletop Gaming Club? Did you play an extremely intense game of chess or something?” Touya doesn’t reply to that, either. The two of them are both silent for a few moments.</p><p>“Was it fun, at least?”</p><p>“...Yeah.”</p><p>“Then it’s worth it, right?”</p><p>Touya lifts his head to look at Akito, who is looking back at him expectantly. “Yeah.”</p><p>“Whereas, for example, my chemistry homework is both exhausting <i>and</i> boring, so it’s not worth my time.” Akito frowns.</p><p>“Do your damn homework, Akito.”</p><p>“Have you finished it already?”</p><p>“...No.” He stays face down on his bed.</p><p>“I hate that we have to take Chemistry. Aren’t we just here to study music?”</p><p>“You have to take core classes to graduate high school. It’s the law.”</p><p>“Since when did rich private schools care about the law?”</p><p>“Stop complaining.” They’re both quiet for a few more seconds. Touya, deciding he’d better start his homework, eventually gets up, puts down his backpack, and takes off his school blazer, hanging it over the back of his desk chair. “It’s better to study at your desk, you know.”</p><p>“Yeah. Whatever.” Akito shrugs. Touya looks over at his desk, which is somehow already messy, even though they’d only been here for two weeks at most.</p><p>“You should organize your things.”</p><p>“No.” </p><p>"You sound like a twelve year old."</p><p>"And <i>you</i> sound like my mother!"</p><p>Touya shakes his head in disapproval as he sits down and takes out his notebooks.</p><p>“Have you finished your Algebra homework yet?” Akito asks him, the earlier tone of aggressiveness now gone.</p><p>“Yes.” Touya turns to look at him over his shoulder. “Why?”</p><p>“I was wondering if you could help me with it.” Akito continues to look at his Chemistry textbook, but it doesn’t seem like he’s actually reading the words.</p><p>“Sure, later,” Touya replies, not turning his head back. Instead he continues to look at Akito’s profile, hunched over his textbook like an overgrown middle schooler. He looks a little pissed off, but he’s not sure if that’s because he’s actually pissed off or not, because Akito usually tends to look like that. When he’s alone, at least.</p><p>Akito raises his head to make eye contact with Touya. “What?”</p><p>“What do you mean, what?”</p><p>“Why are you still looking at me like that?”</p><p>“You’re the least boring thing in this room to look at,” Touya replies.</p><p>“Do I have to tell you now? Do your damn homework, Touya.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>weeeeeeeeeeeeee next few chapters are gonna be cool as hell im so excited to write them</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hi! it's been awhile and i apologize for that! but i kind of assumed no one really minded much because we all had other things to do . personally i have been very into playing this anime gay people phone game (lol)</p><p>buttt it *is* a long one this time !! :D</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On Friday morning, Akito goes to stand in line and get them both breakfast so Touya has more time to cram the Music Theory homework he hasn’t done yet. Chewing on the eraser of his pencil, he watches as Akito makes a face while pouring his coffee- no doubt cringing at the smell- and smiles slightly, lowering his head to work on his homework.</p><p>His mind floats back to the thought he’d had earlier, that he and Akito are growing apart. While there’s definitely a distance between them, he can tell Akito isn’t trying to push him away. In other words, he’s not willfully keeping anything from Touya, but there’s something else- maybe internal, maybe external- that makes him afraid of being vulnerable.</p><p>He sighs and continues notating alto harmonies in his staff book. </p><p>Chamber ensembles are to meet today after lunch, and Kanade is supposed to hand over the sheet music for the composition she’d written for them. Touya is looking forward to having something to play during their meetings, because in the past few times they’ve met since last week, they haven’t actually done much practicing. Anyone that thinks the kids in the higher level groups always stay on task are mistaken.</p><p>He is second to Ena in getting to their designated practice room. He almost hopes she won’t ask about Akito. She looks professional in her school uniform with her double bass, like always, completely focused on the scales she’s practicing, and she doesn’t even acknowledge Touya until he’s putting rosin on his bow.</p><p>“Hi Aoyagi-san,” she greets.</p><p>“Hello, Shinonome-san,” Touya replies.</p><p>“It’s not like Mafuyu to be anything other than early…” she muses, as if trying to figure out what exactly to say. Touya closes his eyes in concentration and starts tuning his violin, glad she doesn’t seem worried about what Akito’s up to. “Kanade should be here soon, too, since she doesn’t do Chamber.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“She’s on the composition-focused piano track,” Ena replies. Touya nods in understanding as he moves from his third string to the fourth.</p><p>“I see. So is my brother.”</p><p>“You have a brother?”</p><p>“...Two.” After finishing tuning, he puts his bow on the music stand and his violin in his lap.</p><p>Ena shifts her weight and adopts a more casual posture. “Are you the middle child, then?”</p><p>“The youngest.”</p><p>Ena seems surprised. “Really? You don’t seem like the youngest brother,” she narrows her eyes. “Younger brothers are usually loud, stubborn, annoying, uncooperative, way over-defensive-” she stops when the door opens and Mizuki walks in.</p><p>“Hey,” they greet, their viola case by their side, decorated with pink ribbon.</p><p>“You’re not usually this early,” Ena notes suspiciously.</p><p>“I’m fine, thanks for asking! How are you, Enanan?”</p><p>“Oh, shut up-”</p><p>“If you keep arguing like that, I’m leaving,” interrupts Kanade from the doorway. “I could be composing.” Since she’s not sitting, Touya can see how long her hair actually is; it goes past her knees. It’s perfectly brushed and looks clean and glossy, and Touya wonders how she manages to take care of it. “Mizuki and I were together, and I made sure we were both on time.”</p><p>Mafuyu comes a few minutes later, explaining apologetically about how she’d been asked to help tutor some first year students in the library and had lost track of time, but no one really minds because she hasn’t been late before.</p><p>They end up taking a quick walk down the hall to a practice room with a piano in it so Kanade can play the song for them. When he sees the piano, Touya realizes how long it’s been since the last time he’s played. He’s always preferred violin, but until he’d come here, he’d studied both instruments side by side, so it feels a little strange thinking about it.</p><p>When Kanade sits down at the piano bench, she tucks her arm under her hair and lifts it so it falls down her back and she won’t sit on it. If it was any longer, it might barely touch the floor, but it hangs at about equal to her ankles at the lowest. She cracks her knuckles, maybe just for show, and starts playing, icy blue eyes staying steely though her fingers play with perfected balance between emotion and textbook mastery. Her playing isn’t robotic, nor overly dramatic.</p><p>The piece itself is modest, with a melody that sounds to Touya the way a sad memory of something one might have used to find warm and comforting might sound if someone had woven it into song. Looking around at the rest of the members and their expressions, he is reminded of something his mother had told him a long time ago; that one of the beauties of classical music is how it can mean different things to different people but move them all just the same.</p><p>When Kanade finishes the piece, the five of them discuss it, although the atmosphere has turned muted and grey. It’s eventually decided Touya and Mafuyu will share the melody, and Ena and Mizuki will cover the harmonies, and Kanade promises to make copies and give them to Mafuyu afterwards, and she’ll begin arranging it properly for their ensemble. They decide to end rehearsal early.</p><p>When dinner is over, Akito and Touya return to their dorm for the night. Touya goes down to the showers and leaves Akito alone in the room to read Touya’s notes from Language Arts, which he adamantly claims he doesn’t plan to copy.</p><p>Because of how difficult it is for him to get up in the morning, Touya really only showers in the evening so he knows he has enough time. Luckily, unlike Akito, his hair is pretty thin, so it dries before he has to get in bed. Akito, on the other hand, has complained more than once during lunch about his hair being still slightly damp after showering that morning.</p><p>After showering, he goes back to the dorm to find Akito scribbling in his notebook as he stares intently at Touya’s. “Akito.” Touya says, and he holds his cat pen close to his chest, caught red-handed.</p><p>“I wasn’t doing anything.”</p><p>“Just tell me you want to copy my notes; I don’t even really mind it.” Akito huffs, looking back down at the two notebooks side by side.</p><p>“Your handwriting is so perfect,” Akito frowns. “But your doodling…” Touya had completely forgotten he had doodled anything on those notes. “I didn’t know you were a cutesy animal type.” After that period of Music Theory, Touya had taken a liking to doodling little cats in the margins of his notes, but they no longer looked too much like the cats on Akito’s pens.</p><p>“Didn’t know you were, either,” Touya shrugs as he takes out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt to wear to bed. He can feel Akito’s murderous gaze cutting into his back, but he doesn’t really care. “Akito, if you think I’m going to make fun of you for collecting cute cat stationery, you’re wrong.”</p><p>“Don’t tell anyone.”</p><p>“You use those pens during class where everyone can see them; I don’t have to tell anyone.”</p><p>“Would you just shut up-”</p><p>“Am I going to help you with Algebra again or not?” Touya deadpans. “I need to change. Look away.”</p><p>Akito is bad at math- specifically Algebra- because he’s not patient enough for it. That’s Touya’s projection, at least. While some find it easy to get into a rhythm of doing the steps to find the answer, this just makes Akito more and more tense. Especially when the answer he finds is wrong.</p><p>They finally finish at eleven. Neither of them must have heard the ten p.m. bell alerting them to go to sleep, nor the nine p.m. warning bell, but now that Touya realizes the time, he notices the silence that hangs around the walls of their room like a curtain. “Akito, it’s eleven.”</p><p>“Late,” he agrees plainly. “We should go to bed.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Touya stands from where he had been sitting on Akito’s bed and goes over to his own side of the room. Luckily, he’d done all of his own homework after chamber rehearsal ended early so he wouldn’t have to worry about it now.</p><p>As he lays in bed, his mind continues to wander. It sets in that Aokusa is tomorrow- he wasn’t even sure of what to expect. He’d thought he and Akito were going to do something together, but he isn’t so sure of that anymore. Something gnaws at him, reminding him about his father’s words from last weekend, and he tries to ignore it. However, those thoughts keep a light on in his mind, and he realizes he’s going to have a difficult time going to sleep tonight.</p><p>He’s not sure how long he lays there, tossing and turning, unable to get his mind to <i>shut up,</i> but it feels like both an eternity and five minutes all at the same time. He wishes he could do something else. Read. Play piano. Something that isn’t just laying here with only his thoughts to keep him company. They seem to bang up against the sides of his head, screaming to be let out.</p><p>“Touya?” He hears Akito ask softly. “You awake?”</p><p>He lets out a deep breath. “...Yeah.”</p><p>“We’re both having trouble sleeping, I guess,” Akito says. “Mind if I turn a light on?”</p><p>“Go ahead.” He’s thankful for a distraction. Akito turns on the lamp next to his bedside table, and Touya can see him again: he’s laying on his stomach, his arms bent underneath him to lift his shoulders. Touya sits up.</p><p>“I was just thinking…” Akito frowns, his face glowing, lit up by the antique orange light of the lamp. “We should talk about Aokusa, shouldn’t we?”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Remember the first day we were here, and you asked me about dance? I was gonna tell you something about Aokusa, but I got interrupted by the dinner bell, so I didn’t. And we never got back to the conversation.” Touya does remember that, in fact. It must have been pretty important for it to keep Akito up at night.</p><p>“Oh. Right,” Touya replies. He wonders if Akito can see his face in the dim light. “Street dance, right?”</p><p>“Yep. In Aokusa, there’s a huge street dance scene. The entire city is very musically oriented, actually.”</p><p>“Is that your goal, then? To join the Aokusa street dance scene?”</p><p>“Sort of.”</p><p>“Sort of?” Touya frowns.</p><p>Staring intently at the lamp, Akito rests his chin in his palm. “My goals include joining the street performance scene. But that’s one step of many.” Touya wonders how well Akito can see his face. </p><p>“Like I said a few weeks ago, I don’t really know anything about street performance, but it sounds cool.” </p><p>“It’s amazing, honestly,” Akito says, shifting his gaze to Touya. His brown eyes look fiery in the dim orange light. “You usually join a team or a unit, with maybe three or four people at most. You perform in livehouses, and on the streets, of course. Anyone can perform on the street, but having a unit and choreographed dances and music that’s supposed to reflect the freedom of it- that’s the magic of street performance. And since it’s a scene, there are competitions in livehouses, events, that sort of thing.”</p><p>“It seems kind of intense.”</p><p>“I guess it is,” Akito agrees. “But there are no rules.”</p><p>“Doesn’t that just make it more intense, though?” Akito sits up all the way before he replies.</p><p>“Not really. It’s not just a free-for-all, obviously. You’ve gotta have talent and willpower to get past the hard part in the beginning, after all. But unlike classical music, which is full of fundamentals and rules and tradition, street performance is whatever you want it to be.”</p><p>His words remind Touya of when his father had told him he couldn’t compose on his own; not until he could prove he had mastery of the art of composing, which supposedly he couldn’t get from anywhere other than an approved instructor. It had really, really pissed him off that day, but he’d more or less forgotten it. That was what made his father the most angry- the practice of classical music was to be taught formally and not discovered nor experimented with. To Touya, music has always been locked behind a door, to which only his father held the key.</p><p>He realizes street performance is everything his father would absolutely hate him to get involved in, his warning suddenly resonating in his head: <i>”One toe out of line, and I’m pulling you out of that school.”</i></p><p>He ignores the implications of that thought- besides, Akito hadn’t done anything even remotely close to asking him to get involved with it.</p><p>“...I see,” he says quietly.</p><p>Akito frowns at him. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“Nothing. Just tired.” Touya replies. “We should go to bed now so we have energy tomorrow.”</p><p>Sighing, Akito turns off the lamp and flops down on his bed again. “You’re probably right.”</p><p>Touya goes to sleep relatively easy afterwards, his tiredness having finally caught up with him. He even has some kind of dream that night, but he doesn’t remember it after he wakes up. All that’s left of it by morning is its silhouette, and even that begins to fade after a few minutes of dwelling on it, trying to remember exactly what he’d dreamt about.</p><p>Across the room, Akito sits up on his bed. Touya assumes the morning bell had just rung, waking both of them up. Since he’s gotten here, he’s gotten better at letting that bell wake him up. That, or his inner body clock has adjusted to fit it.</p><p>“Morning,” Akito says to him casually. He swings his legs over the side of his bed and raises his arms over his head, shoulders tensing for a few moments as he stretches. “Today’s the day.”</p><p>“Good morning.” Touya lifts himself out of bed and cards his fingers through his hair, walking over to his dresser and opening the top drawer. “Do you have any idea what the temperature’s supposed to be like today?” Akito thinks about this for a moment.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Touya sighs and stares at his shirts, folded in the drawer the way he’d put them in there in the first place. It suddenly occurs to him he hasn’t worn any of his own casual clothing since he’s gotten here. Since it’s Autumn, he decides to wear dark navy jeans and a light grey sweater, one with long sleeves he can pull over his palms if he feels cold. Akito has the same sort of idea: he’s in jeans, a t-shirt and a lightweight black windbreaker.</p><p>By the time they finally leave their dorm, it’s around seven twenty. They had been told yesterday that the train would leave for Aokusa at eight thirty, so they have plenty of time to eat breakfast. In the hallway, Akito tells Touya that he shouldn’t get coffee. “There’s a place in Aokusa that’s rumored to be really, really good for coffee,” he explains.</p><p>Touya yawns. “It’s not really about the quality of the coffee,” he replies quietly, “I just need the caffeine.”</p><p>“Come on. Trust me.”</p><p>Before Touya can reply, they enter the dining hall, and they’re both immediately confronted by Ena. She addresses Touya first, much to his surprise. “Good morning, Aoyagi-san,” she greets, “the ensemble we were going to see is actually on November 10th, not October 11th, so don’t worry about coming. We’ll go to it later; I apologize on Mizuki’s behalf for mixing up the date.” Touya thanks the stars for that, because he’d completely forgotten about it.</p><p>She looks at Akito, narrowing her eyes. “And you. Don’t be stupid. Also, there’s this cake shop in Aokusa I used to go to all the time last year with Mizuki, I think you’d like it. Here’s the address; also, it’s better to go as two than alone.” She takes a slip of paper out of her pocket and holds it out to him.</p><p>“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Akito mutters. He takes the paper from Ena and stuffs it in his jacket pocket. “Also, isn’t Akiyama a first year?”</p><p>Ena sighs. “Yes, they’re a first year, but they studied a few classes here in middle school before coming here for high school. Their aunt’s the dean.”</p><p>“I see. I had no idea.”</p><p>“Of course you didn’t, you didn’t even know who they were until a few weeks ago!” Touya starts staring off into space, tuning out the siblings as they bicker, going back and forth about little nitpicky things. He thinks it’s interesting how much he’s starting to figure out how similar the two of them are.</p><p>Eventually, Ena is approached from behind by a girl with fluffy pink hair tied into half-pigtails, who introduces herself as Momoi Airi. “Ena-chan, we’re all kind of waiting for you,” she gestures to a table, around which sits Mizuki, Mafuyu, Kanade, and two other girls Touya doesn’t recognize. Ena shoots Akito one last sour look and huffs back to her table.</p><p>Touya is beginning to feel rapidly anxious about going to Aokusa, to the point where he thinks he might not need to drink caffeine anymore. “Let’s go get breakfast, then,” Akito tells him. Touya nods faintly. “You seem subdued again. Like, more than usual.”</p><p>“It’s nothing. I’m just tired.” Touya counters. “We only got…”</p><p>“...Six hours of sleep last night,” Akito finishes, “Which should be enough, shouldn’t it? If you’ve been sleeping alright for the past few nights, which you have, because you lightly snore sometimes.”</p><p>His last comment brings Touya back down to Earth. “It’s not my fault you’re such a light sleeper.”</p><p>Deciding once and for all to skip coffee for now, Touya takes a few pieces of buttered toast and a glass of orange juice, while Akito has his usual plate of various sweet breakfast things. He’d never realized until now how much of a sweet tooth Akito has.</p><p>When they turn around from the end of the breakfast line to look over the sea of tables, they can both see Tsukasa waving at them from the back of the room. Touya waves back weakly, and Tsukasa gestures towards two empty seats at his otherwise full table. Seated with him are Nene, Emu, Rui, and a girl with pigtails of a unique blonde tone, not much different from Tsukasa’s.</p><p>“Tenma-san wants us to sit with him,” Touya says.</p><p>“Did you acknowledge him?” Akito asks.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Shit. That means we can’t pretend we didn’t see him.” Akito frowns. “Fine.”</p><p>“Don’t be rude.”</p><p>Akito and Touya join the others at the table: Emu is looking as bright-eyed and Nene as worn-out as usual. Rui, sitting between them, is writing something on a pad of paper, the page decorated with diagrams and notes, none of it aligning with the lines on the page. “Good morning!” Tsukasa says, holding his arms up in such a way that reflects the chivalrous tone of his speech. Next to him, the blonde girl giggles a little. The more Touya thinks about it, the more he can see a resemblance between her and Tsukasa.</p><p>“Good morning,” Akito says, sliding into the empty seat on Emu’s right. Touya takes the spot to Tsukasa’s left. Akito picks up his knife and cuts part of his pad of butter, beginning to spread it on his pancakes. He looks up at the blonde girl without stopping his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he says to her.</p><p>“I’m Tenma Saki, I’m Tsukasa’s younger sister,” she smiles at him brightly. Touya is not surprised by that.</p><p>“Nice to meet you, I’m Shinonome Akito, and this is my best friend, Aoyagi Touya,” Akito replies, taking more butter on his knife. Touya shoots him a warning glance.</p><p>Sitting with Tabletop Gaming Club during breakfast is another reason why he’s glad he’d decided to not have coffee: their energy is enough as it is. As they all talk, he can tell it’s getting harder and harder for Akito to keep up that strange persona of his, but he hangs on, much to Touya’s dismay. He wants to tell Akito that these people wouldn’t care if he wasn’t perfect, because they’re a friend group that seems to be built on the idea of tolerating each other’s unique mannerisms.</p><p>As they walk through the courtyard over to the front gate after breakfast, Touya finds himself shivering a little from the cold, while Akito glares at the air like he might try to punch it. Since it’s only eight fifteen, Touya expects it to get warmer, but nevertheless he doesn’t like the cold. When they reach the train station they have to stand around for ten minutes and wait for the train to come, and Touya feels like he’s curled so far into himself that he appears four or five centimeters shorter than he really is.</p><p>He and Akito sit next to each other on the train ride, with Touya sitting by the window and Akito on the aisle side. He doesn’t say anything to Akito about it, but it gives him a sense of déjà vu.</p><p>“So you’ve never been to the city, right?” Akito asks him as the train’s engine starts pushing them forward with increasing speed.</p><p>“I have,” Touya remarks, “I’ve just never spent time wandering around a city or anything like that. I went to middle school at an academy in a city, but I was never allowed to do anything on the walk home, other than stop at a game center.”</p><p>“That sucks.”</p><p>“I guess.” Touya has never really thought about it one way or another. That had been the rule, and he’d followed it without a second thought.</p><p>He stares out the window, watching as buildings fly by; one moment they’re there, the next moment, gone. The train ride might be only eleven or twelve minutes long, but he wonders how far the distance is. The light in the train is brighter than he’d remembered it to be, the passing scenery less melancholy.</p><p>“What was Ena talking about back there? With the ensemble?”</p><p>“She, Asahina-san, and Akiyama-san were going to go see a chamber orchestra play, and they invited me to go along with them so we could get ideas for our own chamber ensemble. I’d forgotten about it.”</p><p>“Hm. I see.”</p><p>After they deboard the train, the two of them stand on the sidewalk. Akito, who seems to study the street signs to gain a sense of where they are, and Touya, taking everything in.</p><p>There are people everywhere: bustling on the streets, visible through the windows of storefronts; but it's almost like he can hear more people than he can see. It’s cold, still, and the temperature bites through his sweater with the same persistence as the cloud of chatter and car noise nips at his ears. The city is vivid, not with color, but with spirit.</p><p>“So,” Touya begins, “what are you looking for?” Akito mutters something under his breath that Touya can’t pick up. “What?”</p><p>“Nevermind,” Akito shakes his head.</p><p>“Coffee?” Touya suggests. Akito makes a face at him.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he puts his hands in his pockets. “There’s one thing I want to do first.”</p><p>“Which is?”</p><p>Akito smiles at him in a way that makes Touya feel slightly faint on his feet. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>as always, thank you for reading!</p><p>a few things about this fic:<br/>1. im going to be going through it and making edits to the way characters address each other. originally i made it so they use last names but no honorific and thats just starting to feel strange to me now. and since the game is out, i have a better idea of what characters call each other in the first place. ill also be updating tags but i do that nearly every chapter so its not worth explaining. the absolute ONLY thing i will be editing is names, though, so unless you feel really strongly about that, you dont need to reread the old chapters. just want to let u all know for future reference <i>(edit: i added honorifics/tweaked names and also changed a few very minor details! they arent important plot wise so dont worry about it. there are a few consistency mistakes too but dw i will be patching that up further down the line Whoops)(can u tell im somewhat new to multichapter fics w/ regular updates?)</i><br/>2. now that the game has come out: i am starting to pick up on things that are slightly ooc in this fic but tbh i dont think i really need to change them because the way things develop later are more in character than i thought theyd be (lol) !! things will start shifting into place as i keep writing this<br/>3. not really related to this fic in particular but does akitouya make anyone else just very angry? and sad? at the same time? i was expecting them to be gay but not this gay. and not this sad. no vbs main story spoilers but im in pain</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hi its been awhile bc its the end of the term and i have work a lot but its ok</p><p>before we begin i want to thank u all for 1000 hits its absolutely UNREAL!!!!!!!! never thought id get 1k that fast its amazing. it means a lot to me and i hope i can continue to make this worth it! your support means a lot to me :D</p><p>have a good time w this one :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Touya feels himself grow warmer as they continue to walk; the roads and buildings beginning to glow under the morning sunlight. While he’s a little overwhelmed by the activity around him, he still finds himself aware of every person, every building they pass. He can hear music on every street corner: a shop door opening, someone’s loud car radio, an electronic billboard. </p><p>“Almost there,” Akito mutters as he studies a street sign suspiciously. “...I think.”</p><p>“Have you been here before?” Touya asks him. When Akito shakes his head, he presses, “Then how do you know where to go?”</p><p>“I got directions…” Akito sighs. “But that was a while ago.”</p><p>“Wherever we’re going, I hope it has coffee,” Touya remarks lightly, beginning to feel weary of him. Akito doesn’t reply. The two of them cross 38th Street enveloped in a group of other people who’d also been waiting for the light to turn. “Are we going to pass 42nd?”</p><p>“Maybe, why?”</p><p>“My mother had a favorite cafe on 42nd.”</p><p>Akito hums quietly. “Were you hoping to find it?”</p><p>“It’d be impossible.” That’s all Touya knows about that cafe, he doesn’t even know the name. There are likely over a dozen cafes on 42nd Street anyway, so it’d probably be futile.</p><p>Akito nods, keeping his gaze straight ahead. He doesn’t ask any more questions.</p><p>A few minutes later, the two of them are standing in front of a two-story housing complex. “This is it,” he says, not sounding excited. He rocks from one foot to the other nervously, like he’d much rather avoid being here.</p><p>On the left side of the building, an outdoor staircase leads to a balcony running across the second floor. Decorated with vibrantly colored hanging flower pots and laundry lines, the complex might be unimpressive if it didn’t look so welcoming. </p><p>“Number 203...” Akito traces his index finger over the first two doors of the second row, stopping at the third. “There.”</p><p>“There?” Touya repeats apprehensively, his stomach twisting sideways as a silent realization sets in. Akito gives him a quizzical look. “Nothing… that’s just kind of… high up,” he stares up at the balcony intensely.</p><p>Akito looks at him thoughtfully, like he’s trying to figure out what he means. Touya hopes he’ll understand, because he doesn’t want to state it outright.</p><p>“Want me to keep to the outside?” Akito offers casually after a few moments.</p><p>“...Yes. Thank you.”</p><p>Touya keeps as close to the building as possible as they climb the stairs. He makes sure to focus straight ahead instead of at his feet, where little gaps between each stair remind him how far away he is from the ground and how far he could fall. When they finally reach the second floor, he tries to ensure himself he’ll be fine because Akito is between him and the ledge of the balcony, but he’s still nervous nonetheless.</p><p>“Okay, so before we go in,” Akito prefaces, “You’re about to meet someone that has known me most of my life and will never let me live down anything I ever do.” He pauses for a moment to sigh, as if reminded of old and embarrassing memories. “Also, I’m sorry in advance if-” The apartment door swings open before he can finish his second thought.</p><p>“Ooh, sorry for what?” asks the opener excitedly, a girl with twinkling yellow eyes. Her long hair is a dark blue not unlike Touya’s, but fading into a brighter blue at the tips, and she looks to be around their age. Akito sighs. “No, no, go on!” she smiles, seemingly aware that she’s humiliating him. “You can’t stand at my front door and talk about me without expecting I’d ask about it,” she adds. She has a point.</p><p>“Oh, who’s this?” she gestures to Touya, unrelenting. She doesn’t even greet Akito, as if she’d just seen him an hour ago.</p><p>“My roommate. His name’s Aoyagi Touya.” Akito grumbles. The girl looks Touya up and down and then extends a hand to him.</p><p>“Hi! I’m Shiraishi An. I’m Akito’s former classmate, childhood friend, best friend, ex-girlfriend, and I taught him how to ride a bike. Props to you for dealing with him.” Touya takes her hand and shakes it a few times, suddenly feeling starkly out of place. The idea that Akito had dated her before proves hard to swallow, lodged awkwardly in the back of his throat.</p><p>“Would you stop saying you’re my ex-girlfriend!” Akito groans helplessly. “We were eleven years old!”</p><p>An giggles. “It’s so funny when you get defensive about it,” then to Touya, she adds, as if it’s a secret: “I only like girls now, so don’t worry, he’s all y-”</p><p>“An!” Akito interrupts, even more aggravated.</p><p>“An-chan, what’s going on?” asks a voice from behind her. An looks over her shoulder and moves to the side, revealing another much smaller girl with delicate features and dirty blonde hair just reaching past her shoulders.</p><p>“Oh, Kohane!” An smiles at her. “This is Shinonome Akito, he was my best friend in elementary school; and that’s Aoyagi Touya, his friend.” She looks back at the two of them. “Akito, Touya, this is Azusawa Kohane! She’s my classmate and unitmate!”</p><p>Akito smiles at her, his personality having done a complete one-eighty. “Nice to meet you, Azusawa-san.”</p><p>It’s like all the aggression Akito had held moments before has been transmitted to An, who uses her left hand to push up the right sleeve of her sweatshirt and curls her right fist threateningly. “Nice to meet you, Shinonome-kun-” An swings her fist at Akito and hits him square in the middle of his chest. “An-chan!” Kohane exclaims, panicked, and Touya takes a step back towards the wall of the complex, trying to distance himself.</p><p>Akito stumbles back from the force, getting dangerously close to the railing of the balcony, but his hand grips it and he steadies himself. Touya sighs with relief. “An-chan!” Kohane cries again, “What was that for?”</p><p>An’s eyes stay fixed on Akito’s, her aura still intense with an underlying energy, like she might start flashing with electricity. “I was hoping you’d outgrown that.”</p><p>Akito brings his hand up to his chest, still leaning on the railing, the look in his eye rivalling An’s own vehemence. The two look like they’re about to start fighting to the death, but before either of them can say anything else, An’s neighbor, an older woman, opens her door to peer timidly at them.</p><p>Fretfully, she asks about what had been going on, to which An replies, “Nothing! Sorry for disturbing you!” and the four of them scurry into An’s apartment like it had been the plan all along.</p><p>The Shiraishi apartment is definitely home to more than one person: Touya can tell the moment he steps into the place. It’s not necessarily poorly taken care of, but it’s well lived in: there are dishes in the drying rack and some still sitting near the sink waiting to be washed, multiple pairs of shoes waiting by the entryway, and junk mail littering the counters. There’s a warm scent in the air, too, which he can trace back to the half-eaten meal on the dining room table, suggesting he and Akito had interrupted their breakfast.</p><p>“Sit,” An instructs, pointing at the table.</p><p>“We already ate,” Akito says as he takes his shoes off at the door.</p><p>“I didn’t say you had to eat. Just sit down and let Kohane and I finish breakfast,” An chides. “It’s nine in the morning.” It makes sense that they’d both just woken up: they’re both still in their pajamas.</p><p>A few minutes later, the four of them are seated around the dining table: An and Akito on one side, Touya and Kohane sitting across from them respectively. “So,” An begins as she picks up a piece of egg with her chopsticks, “You two go to Shiba, right? Since you called this summer, Akito, I’ve been waiting for you to eventually show yourself at some point. How’d you escape?”</p><p>“We’re allowed to come here on Saturdays.” Akito replies, and then under his breath but still clearly audible, he mutters, “I would have escaped if we weren’t, though.” Touya doesn’t doubt it.</p><p>“You’re still playing the clarinet?”</p><p>“Yep.” Akito replies flatly. An frowns at him as she puts her egg in her bowl and pricks the yolks open with her chopsticks so they run over the rice.</p><p>“What about you, Touya?” She turns to him. She reminds Touya of a cat: candid, bright-eyed, poking and prodding mischievously at any subject of her curiosity.</p><p>“I play violin.” Nodding in consideration, An picks up her ricebowl in one hand.</p><p>“And Akito’s not a terrible roommate, huh?” Akito sighs hopelessly next to her. “Not too messy or inconsiderate or demanding?” She puts a clump of rice and yolk in her mouth as though she’s trying to hide a tiny smirk. It’s like she’s talking from experience.</p><p>“Not really,” Touya interjects modestly. “Sometimes I help him with homework if he asks, though.” Akito sends him a grateful glance as An nods, swallowing her food.</p><p>“I see,” An says lightly, “It surprises me that Akito would ever ask anyone for help.” She gestures to Kohane. “Kohane and I were going to study this morning and then practice in the afternoon, but it seems we’ll have to skip studying.”</p><p>Kohane takes a sip of miso soup and pouts. “Then you’ll fail the test again.”</p><p>“So it’s a make-up exam?” Akito smiles smugly at An.</p><p>“Don’t act like <i>you’ve</i> never had to retake a test before! I’m on the school disciplinary committee, you know! It’s not like I don’t study!”</p><p>“I never said that!” Akito taunts. Touya sighs and rests his chin in the palm of his hand.</p><p>“An-chan, if you skip studying today, your dad might not let you perform at the event,” Kohane reminds her urgently. “We already practiced a lot, so it’d be a waste of effort!”</p><p>“...I guess.” An finishes her rice and sets her bowl on the table, laying her chopsticks across the top. “Well, in that case, we’d better get going.”</p><p>Twenty minutes later, the four of them are back out on the balcony. An and Kohane have both gotten dressed in clothing befitting the temperature, which has warmed ever so slightly since Akito and Touya had arrived at the apartment.</p><p>Touya isn’t sure of what to make of either of them. He understands immediately why An and Akito had been best friends- or maybe ‘partners in crime’ is a better term. That sort of confuses him, because although he and Akito are close, he’s really nothing like An at all.</p><p>Once again, Touya stays as close to the wall as possible as they descend the stairs, and Akito walks next to him, which is only a fraction of a percent more reassuring.</p><p>“An,” Akito calls ahead to her as the four finally reach solid ground. Touya sighs in relief, and Akito gives him a small sideways smile. “Where’s your dad?”</p><p>“Had to be up early because of the stuff going on at the cafe tonight.” She frowns. “Kohane, since we didn’t practice on the stage last night and we made those changes to the choreo, shouldn’t we run it there again? I’m sure Dad will give us an hour.”</p><p>Kohane smiles. “An-chan, that’s a good idea!”</p><p>She turns to Akito and Touya, her golden eyes like stars against her dark blue colored hair. “I’m sure you two will be gone by the event, so you can tag along with us.”</p><p>“Sounds great,” Akito replies insolently, as if he’s challenging An to a duel. “It’s been awhile.”</p><p>Touya should have guessed that An- and by extension, Kohane- would be into street performance like Akito is. An’s dad seems to be encouraging of it, too. It’s sort of strange to him to see Akito so intensely in his element- in school, he’d been so guarded, like he didn’t want anything to do with anyone. Touya can tell that these are Akito’s people.</p><p>Not only has the temperature changed since he’d walked to An’s apartment with Touya- so has the amount of people. He can see Kohane cling to An’s arm a little as the two walk, a few paces ahead of him and Akito, and Touya assumes she’s easily overwhelmed by people. For such a small and quiet person, Touya doesn’t doubt it. She has a demeanor like a small animal.</p><p>Touya doesn’t mind being around a lot of people as long as he’s not forced to talk to them, so he finds himself more fascinated than anything else as they walk. All of the residents of Aokusa share a kind of boldness, maybe unique to city people- even the people that lounge outside of restaurants and on benches seem preoccupied. Touya can tell that they have places to be and things to be doing, something to achieve.</p><p>His father had called them dreamers on dirty streets. He’d made it sound like they were unknowing and unaware of reality, devoid of any purpose in life and clinging to an aspiration they’d never reach.</p><p>“Touya,” Akito says, breaking the silence, “You okay?” Touya turns his head to glance at him, and the first thing he notices is that light, again- one he realizes is ever-present in Akito’s eye. It’s almost captivating.</p><p>He’s quiet for a moment, letting his thoughts dissipate like salt in water. “Yes, why?”</p><p>“You look like you’re...” Akito swerves a little out of the way to kick a rock into the street. “I don’t know.”</p><p>“Oh,” Touya replies blankly, confused. “No, I’m fine.”</p><p>Before Akito can reply, An and Kohane stop in front of a shorter, dark brown wood building, the walls of which are largely taken up by windows. The door is glass as well, and though the light inside the building is dim and warm, he can make out tables and chairs and moving silhouettes. “Here we are!” An smiles. She skips into the building, leading Kohane by the hand, and after sharing a glance, Touya and Akito follow.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ok so first of all updates may be more spread out from now on (not as long as a wait as this one im sorry) bc of work and school picking up and all that fun stuff (also a few other pjsekai writing projects)(and vbs/mmj events to tier)</p><p>thank u to my <a href="https://twitter.com/hxhorbit">sister</a> for agreeing to come on board as a beta reader! she really helped me out this time :D</p><p>also!!!!!! my good friend beka drew fanart based off the end of chapter five and its SO GOOD ive stared at it for hours. pls check it out <a href="https://twitter.com/mitsukilovemail/status/1312827893119102989?s=20">here</a> and also look at the rest of her art bc she is Amazing and deserves it!!!!!!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hey its been awhile lmao! just... have a good time i guess!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Blaringly loud music drowns out the ring of the bell above the door as An, Kohane, Akito, and Touya enter the cafe. To the right, there’s a deep stage about a meter tall tucked into the back corner. Though there aren’t curtains, there’s a pretty simple lighting grid, suggesting that the stage’s purpose is exclusively musical, not theatrical. A group of three adults works on setting up speakers and microphones, two men and one woman, who looks younger by ten years at most.</p><p>An makes a beeline toward a man who Touya assumes is her father, Kohane following close behind. With all the cords and technology still cluttered around the stage, Touya doubts An’s father would let them on it very soon, but just standing there by the door is enough for him.</p><p>The interior is modern and comfortable with simple tables and chairs, and everything glows with warm toned light. The scent of fresh coffee in the air is a vibrant reminder that after everything, Touya still hasn’t had any yet. He’s decidedly glad about that fact - coffee from the cafeteria is nothing compared to something you’d get from a real cafe in the city. </p><p>Akito seems just as taken with the interior as Touya is. “They’ve got a good stage in here. Ken-san wouldn’t settle for something shitty, anyway, but it’s still impressive,” Akito says, putting his hands in his pockets with a contented sigh. He has a far-off look in his eye again. “With all that set-up, tonight’s event must be really cool. Wish I could see it.” </p><p>Touya is trying to think of a way to respond when they’re approached by the young woman who had been working on the stage. She wears a plain red shirt with jeans, and her soft brown hair is stylishly cropped, curling at the ends and framing her face. “Can I help you two?” she asks, a slight smile playing on her lips. </p><p>“We’re just waiting,” Akito replies. Touya nods passively in agreement. He continues to watch An talk to her father, obviously frustrated over something, while Kohane pats her on the arm like she’s trying to get An to move on. He can’t hear them over the music, but he can guess the answer is not what An wanted to hear.</p><p>“Why don’t you sit down?” asks the woman. “I heard An-chan ask Ken-san about using the space. We’re still in the middle of setting up the sound, so it’ll be a half an hour or so. I’ll make you drinks while you wait.”</p><p>“That sounds nice,” Touya replies quickly, before Akito can turn her down. “I’ll take a dark roast, black, and Akito wants hot chocolate.”</p><p>“Gotcha. I’ll brew a big fresh pot, I think the rest of us could use a pick-me-up as well. Give me a few minutes.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Touya gives her a small smile.</p><p>As she goes behind the bar, Touya takes Akito by the wrist and leads him to the nearest table. He lets go when he feels Akito twisting his arm like he’s trying to escape. “You didn’t need to grab me like that. I would have followed you anyway,” he grumbles, dropping himself into an empty chair. Touya does the same, pulling his sleeves over his palms and resting his chin in his hands.</p><p>“Sorry.”</p><p>“...It’s fine.”</p><p>Touya lets out a small, relieved sigh as he thinks about his day so far: from wandering around Aokusa, to meeting An and Kohane and going to An’s family cafe, he’s started to get used to the energy and the atmosphere. If he’d known that this was where the Academy would lead him, he would have been much more excited to go.</p><p>But the truth is that the Academy wasn’t supposed to lead him here. That thought kind of wakes him up from whatever dream he’d been having that maybe this is where he belongs. </p><p>After a few minutes the music is turned off, and An, Kohane, and An’s father join them. An’s father has the same golden eyes and dark hair as his daughter, and he wears worn jeans with an old T-shirt promoting an event held nearly ten years ago, its print beginning to peel off. As An and Kohane sit at the table- An across from Touya, Kohane to her left- he remains standing. “Hello, Akito, it’s been awhile,” he greets.</p><p>“Hello, Ken-san,” Akito replies, not overbearingly polite as usual, but with respect. Touya realizes he’d been the person Akito had said ‘wouldn’t settle for something shitty’ when it came to a stage, and the paint on his jeans suggests he’d furnished the cafe on his own.</p><p>“And you are?” Ken asks Touya with a small yet sincere smile.</p><p>“Aoyagi Touya. Akito’s friend.” He bows his head slightly. “Nice to meet you.”</p><p>“I’m An’s dad, Shiraishi Ken,” he replies. “Nice meeting you as well. Akito, what brings you to Aokusa?”</p><p>“School,” Akito leans back in his chair. “Touya and I go to Shiba Music Academy.”</p><p>They’re joined by the woman, who places a cup of hot cocoa in front of both Akito and Kohane, topped with whipped cream and rings of chocolate sauce. “I’ve heard of Shiba Academy,” she interjects, putting her hands on her hips. “Prestigious school for classical music, correct?”</p><p>“Yep.” Akito scoops up the tip of the whipped cream with a finger and licks it. “‘Honoring the classical traditions of the study of music,’” he says, mockingly. “Or whatever the hell.”</p><p>“You’re still playing clarinet?” Ken asks, raising an eyebrow.</p><p>“Mhm,” he affirms, taking the mug in his hands. Kohane, on Touya’s right, lowers her mug from her mouth, leaving a dot of white on the tip of her nose. An leans over and points it out to her. “Touya plays violin.”</p><p>“Violin’s a very nice instrument,” the woman says. “Ken-san, coffee?”</p><p>“That would be nice, Meiko-san. The usual,” he answers. Meiko nods and leaves again. “Sometimes I wish An would have continued the viola past middle school.” His voice is light, like he doesn’t really mean it.</p><p>“Pfft,” An snorts. “I don’t regret quitting at all. Hated every second of it.”</p><p>“I know, I know,” he replies, regarding his daughter with a tired sort of endearment and smiling eyes. “You’ve certainly got my sense of independence when it comes to music.”</p><p>Touya spaces out for a moment, his attention drawn again to the stage. He’s more or less understanding of their resentment of classical music- they’ve all probably heard the dogmatic assertion that classical music is the only genre in which music actually becomes art. It’s the same philosophy Touya has heard his entire life, and he’s beginning to feel bitter about it himself.</p><p>He comes back to reality when he hears a mug of coffee being placed before him by Meiko’s steady hand. The scent is warm.</p><p>“...that there are things to learn from it, too,” He can suddenly hear Ken saying. “No genre is necessarily better than the other. The best musicians can find artistic value in every kind of music.”</p><p>“Yeah,” An replies, looking at Akito with a playful sort of contempt. Akito sighs at her and takes another sip of his hot chocolate. “Oh, by the way, Touya,” An turns to him, her eyes intense, “Do you do street dance or anything?”</p><p>Touya shakes his head uneasily. “Just violin and piano.”</p><p>“Oh, then we should teach you!” An exclaims. “It’d be super cool if we could, like, be a unit of four-”</p><p>“No,” Touya says, a little bit more firmly than he means to. “I mean- I’m not-” He tries to find words to explain himself, but he can’t think of anything other than the truth, which sits firmly at the base of his throat.</p><p>Akito puts his mug on the table, interrupting An, who looks like she’s going to press Touya harder. “An.” He turns to Touya, his eyes narrowed, suspicious but not angry. Touya brings his gaze down to stare at his reflection in his coffee, still untouched. The last thing he wanted to do was offend anyone, but just being here was enough to make him feel anxious.</p><p>“He’ll just watch.” Akito takes a sip of cocoa again, voice firm. Touya’s gut twists out of guilt.</p><p>“It’s about time we head back to the stage and finish things up,” Ken says, a mug in his hand. “I’ll leave you four to catch up and let you know when things are ready.” He nods at Meiko, and the two of them leave.</p><p>Kohane is first to speak, surprisingly, breaking a sort of awkward silence since neither An or Akito can sacrifice their pride. “So… how did you two meet?” She looks between them. “Friends since elementary school, right?”</p><p>An puts her elbows on the table and leans forward, mug in one hand. “He came to one of Dad’s performances and never left us alone after that. He was so earnest.”</p><p>Akito groans. “Shut up.”</p><p>“Eventually Dad offered to teach him stuff, along with me, and he started hanging out with us after school for a while. We just kinda ended up being best friends,” An continues. Touya picks up his coffee and takes a drink, feeling his nerves relax. “And then, you know, up until the first year of middle school when I moved here, we were around each other all the time.”</p><p>“Straightforward as always. You haven’t changed,” Akito replies, turning to face An. Touya can’t see his expression, but from An’s little giggle, he expects Akito looks ill-humored.</p><p>“You haven’t either,” An replies lightly. “But I can’t believe you ended up going to school for clarinet.”</p><p>Touya swallows another drink of coffee. “He’s not bad at it,” he says. Everyone they’ve met so far has seemed so surprised that Akito goes to the Academy, and while Touya has felt that Akito seems not only out of place but also pretty disinterested in clarinet to begin with, he wonders if it’s more than that. “He’s not very obedient, but it’s not like he doesn’t try.”</p><p>“You know his older sister, right? Doesn’t she go there, too?” An asks him, putting her mug down and resting her chin in her palm.</p><p>“Yes,” Touya replies, aware of the way Akito looks at him, like he’s pleading that Touya keep certain things between them. What things, Touya isn’t sure, but he chooses his words carefully. “She’s nice. She’s in my chamber orchestra, actually.”</p><p>“Your what now?”</p><p>“Chamber, they’re small ensembles decided by audition.” Akito sighs. “Three to five people with no conductor. Touya’s in one with my sister, her perpetually tired roommate, and this other person named Mizuki, who’s like her best friend, I guess. Even though she seems like she’s always sick of them.”</p><p>Touya shares a glance with Kohane for a moment. “That doesn’t sound familiar at all,” she says lightly.</p><p>“Nope. Nothing like anything else I’ve ever seen,” Touya replies, nodding. An and Akito seem completely unaware of their sarcasm. They’re on the same wavelength- they may argue, but Touya is in awe of how similar they are.</p><p>An turns to address Touya with bright eyes. “Woah. You’re talented, then, if you’re at the same level as Ena.”</p><p>Touya looks down at his coffee again. “...I guess.”</p><p>“He is,” Akito agrees.</p><p>“I didn’t ask you,” An frowns.</p><p>He rolls his eyes. “Okay?”</p><p>“So are you going to tell me why you ended up at Shiba Music Academy when you were so uninterested in it back then?” She takes her coffee in her hand, swirling it around and then taking a drink.</p><p>“Just… had a change of heart,” Akito answers, voice brittle. “That’s it.”</p><p>An leans back in her chair, still holding her mug. “Interesting. I’ll wait for you to tell me the truth.”</p><p>Sipping his coffee awkwardly, Touya is relieved that An’s attention doesn’t rest on him anymore. He looks at Akito above the top of his mug as he brings it to his mouth- Akito looks more bothered by An than he has until now. Touya can tell when Akito is hiding something because he thinks it’s embarrassing, like cat pens or not knowing how to tie a tie, but this is different. He’s trying to be stoic.</p><p>Touya notes how An’s eyes stay bright as she reads him, though she’s not smiling out of glee. He realizes she can probably read Akito better than he can, knowing him for so many more years, and being so similar to him. Akito is a mystery to Touya; he wonders how it must feel to be able to read him like a book.</p><p>Akito shifts his weight on his chair uncomfortably. “So. Azusawa.”</p><p>Across from him, she blinks nervously. “Yes?”</p><p>“How’d you end up getting into street music?”</p><p>An grins at her unitmate, as if beckoning her to answer. “The day that An-chan transferred to our school, I was assigned to showing her around, and we just… ended up being really good friends. So she invited me here one day and told me about street performance and eventually I decided to do it myself,” Kohane says quietly. “That’s about it.”</p><p>Resting her hand on Kohane’s shoulder, An looks at Akito proudly. “Just wait ‘til you see her perform! She might seem shy now, but she’s super cool on stage!”</p><p>Kohane smiles at her warmly. “An-chan, I-”</p><p>“Alright, alright,” Akito interrupts, “I didn’t ask to see you guys be so mushy gushy about it.”</p><p>Not long after, An’s dad tells them they’ve finished setting up. An, Kohane, and Akito are quick to run onstage, and Touya pulls up a chair so he can watch them from the main level of the cafe. He notices when Akito smiles to himself in comfortable confidence, his hands on his hips, surveying the view from the stage, but when he catches Touya’s eye, he looks worried, maybe a little apologetic.</p><p>Touya shakes his head a little and brings his feet off the floor to perch cross-legged on the chair. He doesn’t feel left out, he’s thankful that Akito would show this to him at all, because he knows this isn’t what he was born to do. He and Akito lead very different lives, after all, and at this point in time they’re only crossing paths. He knows that eventually they’ll split and life will lead him one way and Akito another. He’s glad to enjoy it while he can, but he can’t get too attached to it.</p><p>Shiba Music Academy had been just another episode of Touya’s monotone life until he’d made his own friends for the first time ever, and even that could be taken from him if he’s not too careful. His father’s threats are never empty.</p><p>He looks back at the three on stage: Akito stands at the perimeter, watching An and Kohane run through choreography, fingers tapping on his thigh as he counts out the tempo. Touya smiles into his coffee as he realizes Akito was meant to be onstage; Touya can feel his intensity and spirit from where he sits as the sole audience member. He doesn’t need to be afraid of imperfections.</p><p>An pulls out her cellphone, unlocks it, taps it a few times, and then hands it over to Akito, pointing at something on the screen. Akito brings it over to the sound system and tries to make sense of the cords until An says, “It’s the black one with the red jack!”, and he’s able to find what he’s looking for. He plugs the cellphone in and taps the screen.</p><p>Almost immediately, a song starts playing loud and clear over the speakers. It’s nothing like Touya’s ever heard before- it’s almost entirely synthesized, with a low bass and a repetitive airy whistle layered on top of it. But it’s not weak- by the time An starts singing, Touya can feel it start building in power.</p><p>Kohane and An are a good pair on stage, Touya can tell that much even without any background knowledge of street performance. An’s style is bold and colorful while Kohane’s is more finessed, like she’s using her delicate demeanor to her advantage. Their levels of passion are the same, though, and they carry each other in stride while they dance. Kohane’s whispery voice makes her rapping unique, while An, being more charismatic in nature, has a sort of flair in the way she moves. It’s fascinating.</p><p>When they’re done, Akito gives the two of them a few pointers, things Touya hadn’t even thought twice about while he’d been watching. He even demonstrates some of his suggestions himself- like he’s seen the dance a thousand times instead of just once. An makes eye contact with Touya and smiles as Touya gives her a thumbs up with his free hand. </p><p>As they continue, he eventually finishes his coffee- room-temperature, by now- and his attention shifts to the window, watching the passerby. Their gazes are far off and no one stops to look through the window back at him, but he’s fine with that. He can understand why his mother had been so fond of places like this. He’s at peace, even just for a moment, as he imagines what it would be like to live a life completely different from his own.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>once again thank u to my <a href="https://twitter.com/monaorbit">sister</a> for being my proof reader! thank you to everyone on twit for being so supportive of this too- i'm really honored to be writing for this community i think</p><p>uhhh ive been wanting to update this but second term was BAD... and then the period of nocturne event was announced and i read the event story last night and it was like... pure inspiration for this lol . anyway love u guys and ill see u again soon hopefully!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>you probably came here from twitter but in case you didnt my twitter is <a href="https://twitter.com/moremorejump">@moremorejump!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>